Yet the Darkness Will Deceive
by Hallucina
Summary: The Avengers don't shy away from trouble. But when their own team starts to fracture, it's evident that trouble has come to them. As the darkness takes over and a madman starts bombing places a little too close to home, Tony realizes they may be dealing with a power beyond their knowledge. A story about tricks, treachery, a mad mischief god and a mechanic who needs him.
1. Chapter 1

**This takes place approximately one year after the events of the Avengers. However, Stark Tower remains a business center, and the Avengers have their own HQ in New York.**

* * *

><p>New York. Where it starts and where it ends.<p>

When Tony fell to earth, when he made the split-second decision to fly the nuke into space, he knew he wasn't going to come back. A one-way trip, Steve said. He was a dead man the second he passed through the portal.

People fear heights because they don't want to fall. Don't want to crash and burn.

Tony never feared them. Maybe because he's reckless, maybe because he never stopped to think about it. Maybe he liked the risk. Or maybe he'd trade the terror in for a chance to fly.

But when Tony fell from the portal, when he spun and plummeted towards the earth, the only emotion he felt was fear.

* * *

><p><em>"Sir."<em>

"Shubft ufp," Tony groans, his voice muffled by the pillow under his face.

_"Mr. Stark, I'm afraid I must insist. Mr. Odinson is looking for you."_

Tony rolls over and blinks the crust out of his eyes. He briefly considers going back to sleep, but since it's Thor calling, he knows that he'd end up very much awake anyways, and through not-so-pleasant means. So that means getting out of bed. Fuck.

_"Sir—"_

"I'm going, Jesus," Tony grumbles, swinging out of bed. The air is cold on his exposed shoulders. "Jarvis, turn it up a couple degrees in here, I'm freezing my ass off."

He scoops some clean-ish smelling clothes off the floor, the air warming against his skin as Jarvis complies with his request, and tugs them on. The floor has chosen some sweats and a t-shirt with a mysterious splotch for him, but he doesn't want to deal with his monster of a closet this morning. There are probably only dusty suits in there anyway. Yawning, he heads into the bathroom to take a piss.

After he's relieved himself, he glances despondently at the noticeable bags under his eyes and runs a hand through his unruly hair before mentally declaring it a lost cause.

There's a muffled "TONY" from down the hall, and really, he should get going.

_"Sir, it would be in your best interests to—"_

"Don't be a nag, Jarv," Tony cuts him off, scowling. He goes anyway, though, which should show how awesome Jarvis is.

_"I wouldn't dare, sir, not with you around,"_ Jarvis replies, and he takes back what he said about Jarvis being awesome. Snarky bastard. _"Mr. Odinson is waiting for you in the common room."_

He takes the stairs down to the common floor to get to the kitchen because the elevator is set for "emergencies only" by the good captain. (It'd taken them a while to get over their initial expectations of each other, but they're working on it. Tony calls him Steve.) When he steps into the kitchen, Thor is waiting for him in full uniform, looking uncharacteristically tentative.

"Tony," he begins, "I fear—"

Tony holds up a hand. "Hold it, big man. Coffee first."

When he reaches the coffee maker, it's powered up and in the process of brewing a fresh cup. He waits impatiently while Thor stands confusedly behind him. The coffee maker spits out his beverage and he pounces on it, inhaling half of it and groaning.

"Jarvis, I could kiss you right now," he says, and takes another gulp of heaven.

_"Duly noted, sir,"_ Jarvis says amusedly. _"Though as I lack a corporeal body—"_

"Stop killing my caffeine buzz."

_"Sir, caffeine—"_

_"Jarvis."_

Jarvis falls silent, though there's a feeling of amusement filling the air.

Tony turns back to Thor. "Alright, what's going on?"

Their resident thunder god still looks a bit uncertain at the turn of events, but he shakes his head furiously, like a dog, and reorganizes his thoughts.

"I have been called back to Asgard," he says lowly, and yeah, something's going on here.

Tony peers over the rim of his coffee cup, seemingly unconcerned. "So?" he asks. "It's not the first time."

"Something is different," Thor insists. "My summoning was… muddled. I fear something dark is coming."

Tony narrows his eyes. "But you don't know what it is." He's trying to do that thing Natasha does where she makes you tell her what she wants to know without of asking. SHIELD handbook 101, page 332, how to get information from enemies. Well. Probably.

Thor shoots him a look that conveys he knows exactly what Tony is doing. It's too early to be subtle; Thor can't judge him. "No," he admits.

"You have to go," Tony says. It's not a question, but Thor replies to it anyway.

"Yes."

Tony takes a sip of coffee and then exhales, watching the steam dissipate. "Did you tell the others?"

"I have alerted Steve and Natasha," Thor says, "But I have been unable to reach Bruce and Clint."

"What? They're supposed to have their comms on at all times in case of emergencies," Tony mutters, running over possible situations in his head. Bruce had gone to a gamma radiation conference in England or something and Fury had ordered a SHIELD minion to go with him. Bruce had started looking dangerously green at that, though, and so Clint went with him instead.

Tony snaps back to the situation at hand when Thor clears his throat.

"Right," he says. "Jarvis, can you try to reach our resident rage monster and his avian partner?"

_"Calling now, sir."_

"…Where are Steve and Natasha?"

_"They have arrived at the Helicarrier to alert Director Fury and discuss a few publicity matters with him,"_ Jarvis said smoothly.

Tony wrinkles his nose in disgust. "He sticks his nose into everything, doesn't he? Looming over us like a giant ugly vulture."

"I will be leaving tomorrow," Thor rumbles, bringing Tony's attention back to him. His face is still set in worried lines.

"Alright, Blondie, alright," Tony sighs through his nose and runs a hand through his disheveled hair. "It's too early in the morning to deal with this… stuff." He waves a hand vaguely to get his point across. "I'll be down in the workshop if you need me."

Thor nods, his grip tightening slightly on his hammer. "I must visit Jane before I depart. She will want to know ahead of time."

His voice softens slightly when he says Jane's name. Oh god. He's a giant puppy. With muscles. Probably a golden retriever or something, like—

Tony shakes his head. "Right, so she can map the energy release. Okay," he starts heading towards the stairs down to the workshop, coffee cup in hand. "Call if you need any heavily armored flying backup!"

"I will," Thor says gravely, and starts to swing Mjolnir, static electricity pressing down on the room.

"No!" Tony yells, turning around from the top of the stairs.

Thor looks confused. "I do not—"

"No," Tony says again firmly. "You are not busting another one of my windows. Use the door."

"Look alive, everyone, Daddy's here."

Tony snaps his fingers and the workshop comes alive with power. Dummy, You and Butterfingers all give chirps of welcome and the designs of the repulsor stabilizers he was working on last night glow blue and expand.

He sprawls in his chair and sets down his cooling mug of coffee.

"Jarvis, how are we on reaching Clint and Bruce?"

_"I cannot seem to connect to their communicators. I have, however, pinpointed their location. The files will be brought up for you."_

A blue holoscreen pops up in front of him, a blinking red dot located in London, England.

Tony frowns. "I thought they weren't going to London," he says. "Didn't Bruce think it was too high of a risk for him? Pepper even moved the conference for him."

_"You are correct, sir. The conference was not supposed to be held in London. You and Ms. Potts used your considerable influence to change the conference's time and location."_

Tony remembers that. Bruce had acted like they'd given him the moon, though he was still nervous about going to a more highly populated area. Whatever. Bruce deserved a vacation.

"So Bruce and Clint are in London for no discernible reason whatsoever. Wonderful. Jarvis, can you pull up any CCTV footage of their location?"

_"Pulling up live footage now, sir."_

Tony stares.

"Shit," he mutters, because honestly, what the hell is that? It looks like a clear, shapeless mass (did he mention it's floating?) with whirling black smoke trapped inside it. Every so often, the black smoke will tear a gaping hole through the clear stuff and launch itself in what looks like a storm of dark knives at Clint and the Hulk, who are fighting with varying degrees of success on the ground below.

"Jarvis, status report," he barks.

_"The creature is not within our databases. Species: Unknown. Material: Unknown. Origin: Unknown. Time of arrival: Approximately 16.8 hours ago. Agent Barton—"_

"What?!" Tony yelps. "They've been fighting that thing for 16 hours?"

_"It appears that they only encountered the creature 2.7 hours ago. However, there was a significant energy surge approximately 16.8 hours ago in the general vicinity and vague sightings of it since then," _Jarvis says, pulling up rough scans of the weirdo blob thing.

_"Agent Barton has done no damage to the creature so far. In fact, shooting holes in the creature has only released more of the substance contained inside it. The Hulk has done no lasting damage, although he has managed to dent the creature multiple times."_

Tony huffs in exasperation. Thor is gone, Clint and the Hulk have already been fighting for roughly three hours, and he has no idea what Steve and Natasha are doing. Dummy butts against his leg, chirping in sympathy.

"Jarvis, how fast can I get to London?"

_"At maximum speed, approximately 3.2 hours. However, you might want to save some of the suit's energy for the battle currently ongoing in London."_

Tony grunts in dissatisfied acknowledgment, busy charting the flight plan on the StarkPad in his hand. Grudgingly, he looks up. "Okay, Jarvis, get me there at 90% of maximum flight speed."

_"Of course, sir. The suit is ready for you now."_

Tony changes quickly into the under armor that he uses with the suit. He developed it not long after the fiasco in New York, figuring that if it offered extra protection it was worth it. He can still wear civilian clothes in the suit, of course, but they don't do much to stop an injury. The flexible, reinforced fibers of the under armor do—he knows from experience—and can help regulate his body temperature if he ever gets caught outside of the suit.

Once the sleek black under armor has been successfully wriggled into, he steps onto the black pad in the center of the workshop, holding his arms straight out for the suit to clamp around. The pad underneath him splits around his feet and the boots and leg pieces shoot up to his thighs. The helmet goes on last, because he has a flare for dramatics. It's a well-known fact, just ask the tabloids.

Once the helmet clamps on, the inside lights up with holographic chartings. All stats look good, and Jarvis would have told him if there was anything off. Tony checks anyway though, because he's not afraid to admit that he is slightly paranoid, and while he trusts Jarvis with his life, double-checking is something that's too often underestimated considering the amount of lives it could save.

Tony finishes his double-checking ritual and a large pane of glass that serves as a door splits in half smoothly to vanish into the wall.

"Thanks, Jarv," Tony says, and fires up his repulsors. The arc reactor hums in his chest, and the last pieces of the suit click into place for flight.

Blue fire erupts from his hands and feet, and he bursts into the crisp autumn morning.

He makes his way out of New York with no trouble, soaring above the clouds, his belly parallel with the Atlantic Ocean. A blinking dot alerts him of a commercial jet approaching and he adjusts his flight path.

He's cruising at a steady pace, the wind only providing mild resistance against him. He doesn't have anything to do for a couple hours while he makes his way to London, so he alternates between trying to distract himself and anxiously checking up on Clint and Bruce.

He's reading up on the current news when he remembers the two Avengers probably still calming Fury. (The Director is a control freak. Like, an enormous control freak. Not as bad as the Council, though, and that's a whole other can of worms he really doesn't want to open.)

"Jarvis, can you try to reach Steve and Natasha?"

_"Connecting the call now, sir."_ Faithful Jarvis.

_"Tony!"_ Steve yells.

"Calm down, Cap, no need to shout," Tony says, wincing.

_"No, Tony, this is serious."_ Steve insists, and he's panting.

_"Get down!"_ Natasha barks, her voice muffled. There's the sound of an explosion and something cracking before screams start up in the distance.

"Hey—hey! Steve! What's going on?" Tony yells. He pulls up short on his flight path, hovering over the ocean. He adds in an undertone, "Jarvis, I need their location, now."

_"Look, Tony, there's something going on here,"_ Steve says, and something crashes in the background. _"It's like—it's not real. It keeps on—"_

Static crackles and Steve's voice fuzzes out. Why is there static? He designed these comms specifically for the Avengers; they're the best out there. Jarvis silently pulls up Steve and Natasha's location—New York. Back at HQ. What is going on?

"Steve? What's not real? Hey—" Tony says urgently.

_"Tony, can you just get here? There's—we can't—"_

Someone screams and a distant siren blares. The communicator cuts out to dead silence.

"Jarvis?" Tony yells. There are red lights blinking in warning on the screen, because they never lose a call, not after fucking space in New York. "Get him back on! What the hell is happening?"

_"Trying, sir. It appears that the communicator is either damaged or something is blocking the signal."_

"Fuck," Tony mutters, and now he's stuck in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with shit on both sides. He doesn't know where to go and there's not enough data and what the hell is he supposed to do?

_"Sir—breathe, sir,"_ Jarvis says, and Tony realizes he's close to a full-blown panic attack. He pushes down the stress that's crawling into his throat and breathes.

Time to weigh the options. Tony can do this, can calculate odds and ratios and pretend there are no lives on the line. Compartmentalizing. He tries to pull up security camera footage of London and New York, but each time his system fails. There's something wrong with all of this.

The static starts up again, but his call screen is dark.

"Hey—Jarvis?"

A deep crackling voice starts up in his ear. It sounds like a thousand different noises combined into one: fire and electricity and breaking bones. It hisses, a wordless snarl that just barely sounds like words.

"What do you want from me?" Tony snarls, willing his voice to stay steady.

There's a moment of pause, as if in surprise, before the static increases.

_"I'm not here for you,"_ it purrs, a whisper of crackling electricity. _"But you do seem… interesting."_

"Interesting? That's all I get?" he snarks. Never let it be said that Tony Stark doesn't irritate his enemies before they attempt to kill him. "You could at least—"

_"Time's up,"_ the voice interrupts silkily. With a low hissing sound, his holoscreens start shutting down one by one. Power levels, weapons scans, tracking devices. His HUD goes black last, and now he's flying blind.

The Iron Man suit, no longer hovering effortlessly, is a titanium-alloy cage around him as he drops towards the ocean like a stone.


	2. Chapter 2

When Tony wakes, it's to a horrible white light that's every heavenly stereotype wrapped into one. Until he realizes it's a hospital light, and that he's lying down with an IV stuck in his hand. His head feels strange, like his brain has been stuffed with cotton, and when he lifts his arm he feels a thick white bandage covering his left temple. Beneath him are starched sheets and he's in one of those humiliating hospital gowns that open along the whole back.

He blinks blearily and his vision slowly swims into focus. Tony is in a small room, painted white and smelling of bleach. Really, who authorizes this? Not all hospitals have to be fucking white and bleach-y. Paint it red or something. Yeah, red is a good color. Like his suit, and Pep's hair, and apples—and wow, that was really off topic.

Tony stops internally monologuing when he realizes that he is, in fact, internally monologuing. Crap. Whatever painkillers he's on are really effective. He's suddenly aware of the low murmur of voices, overlaid by an irritating beeping noise, that rise in pitch once they realize he's awake.

A slightly blurry man leans into his field of vision.

"Mr. Stark?" he asks. "How are you feeling?"

"Who the fuck're you?" Tony says, slurring slightly. God, he hates painkillers.

"I'm Doctor Harrison," the man says. Tony's vision has sharpened to include the middle-aged doctor with tired eyes standing over his bed.

With a start, Tony remembers the arc reactor, and shit shit shit where is he? He fumbles under his gown and slaps a hand on the hard glass casing to reassure himself. Dr. Harrison just raises an eyebrow.

"Relax, Mr. Stark, you're safe. I'm a SHIELD doc."

"Is that supposed to make me trust you?"

Dr. Harrison huffs out a laugh. "I wasn't expecting it to. We haven't done any scans of your nightlight, I promise. Your teammate can verify that for you." He nods towards the door.

Tony narrows his eyes. "What—" he starts, but before he can finish, Steve comes barreling into the room. He's wearing civilian clothes, which shouldn't be a surprise, but there aren't any injuries on him that Tony can see—which he would expect given the fact that there were explosions and screaming the last time Tony talked to him.

"Tony! The doctors said you were awake," Steve says, giving a brief nod to Dr. Harrison.

"Yeah, hallelujah. What happened?" Tony asks warily, and doesn't miss the way Steve hesitates before answering.

"Tony… you fell from almost 30,000 feet into the Atlantic Ocean. You're lucky there was a cargo ship that saw you crash—actually, you're lucky that the suit gained a bit of power to slow your fall so you didn't hit the water at full speed." Steve looks worried, a furrow forming between his brows. "You really don't remember?"

The voice, his systems crashing. He fell.

"Yeah." His voice is hoarse. Tony clears his throat and tries again. "Yeah, I remember. I was going… going to help Clint and Bruce."

Steve looks even more worried, if possible. "Tony, Clint and Bruce were at the conference in London. They came back today—why were you going over there?"

"They were in trouble!" Tony snaps. He feels jittery, anxious, and the way Steve is looking at him is making his stomach flip uneasily. "They were fighting this—this thing, for something like 16 hours; I saw it on CCTV footage. I was going over to help them and I tried to call you, and then you—there were explosions, and you said something was wrong back at HQ. And then _something_ weird happened, and I fell." He doesn't want to mention the voice.

Steve looks alarmed now, and Dr. Harrison gets up from where he had been quietly sitting by Tony's bed to mutter something in Steve's ear before leaving. Probably that Tony's is completely and utterly off his rocker. Steve takes Harrison's place in the ugly plastic chair next to the bed, sitting down heavily.

"Look, Tony, I don't know what's going on, but…" There's a sinking feeling Tony's stomach even before Steve says the next few words. "You never called me yesterday. Nothing happened in New York and nothing happened in London, either. As far as everyone else is concerned, you flew out into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and shut down your suit."

"I didn't _shut my suit down_, something happened to my systems," Tony retorts angrily. "What, do you think I'm suicidal?"

Steve winces and Tony remembers dumbly that flying a nuke into an alien portal isn't exactly sane behavior. He glares at Steve because crashing an airplane full of bombs into ice isn't healthy either.

Under Tony's glower, Steve hastens to say, "No! No, I believe you."

"Do you really?" Tony asks flatly.

Steve sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. "I don't know, Tony. Are you saying someone gave you fake video footage of Clint and Bruce fighting… _something,_ and then called you speaking _in my voice?"_

"Well, when you put it that way…" Tony mutters. He can't be going insane, he _remembers._ "Hey," he snaps, because now he doesn't know what they think is real. "Did—did you and Natasha go to the Helicarrier this morning?"

Steve furrows his brows in suspicion, but nods. "We went to inform Director Fury that Thor was summoned to Asgard. He was supposed to tell you this morning, did…?"

Tony shakes his head hastily. "No, no, he told me. Just—shit!" Tony sits bolt upright in bed, wide-eyed, before groaning as his head throbs and the room spins slightly.

"Tony?" Steve asks frantically. "What is it?"

"Where's my suit? Did you leave it in the ocean? Because if you did, I swear—"

Steve rolls his eyes, slumping back down into the chair. "Calm down, it's back at HQ. It's pretty wrecked, but—"

"No, you don't understand," Tony says impatiently, "The suit, the suit, I can get some footage, some recordings of what happened!"

Steve sits forward, looking interested. "Go on," he says.

"I won't explain the details to your nonagenarian ass, but Jarvis has automatic recording of all the stuff I access—including security footage. Also, there should be at least a log of if I phoned you yesterday, so you need to get me to the workshop _right now."_

"Tony, I don't think that's such a good idea—"

"Do I have to do everything by myself?" Tony mutters, gazing skyward in exasperation. He climbs out of the stupid hospital bed, leaning heavily on the edge. Steve is looking increasingly more distressed, holding his hands out in front of him like he doesn't know what to do with them.

"Hey—you're injured; really, I think you should just stay here."

Tony just glares at him. "You want answers, I'm pretty sure Fury wants answers, and I want to know that I'm not fucking insane. Now get me some goddamned clothes."

Steve holds his hands up in surrender and heads toward the door, shooting worried glances over his shoulder. "I'll be back in a minute," he says.

Tony grits his teeth and sits gingerly in the now-vacated chair. God, he forgot how uncomfortable they were. Seriously, this was the worst hospital cliché—

There's a man in the dark corner of the room.

Tony blinks and shakes his head. When he looks back at the corner, there's no sign of the dark silhouette. And the corner is brightly lit now, just like the rest of the room. It's like the man-thing _emitted_ the darkness—

Maybe he is going insane.

Steve returns then with his clothes, and stops short at the rattled look in Tony's face.

"Tony?" he asks cautiously. "Everything all right?"

Tony shuts his eyes and opens them with a smile pasted on his face. "Yeah, Cap, I'm fine. Is there a bathroom in this hellhole?"

Steve makes that weird crumply face that he does when he's worried, but points him towards the door. "It's right down the hall. Maybe I should—"

"Hey," Tony says, giving Steve a small, genuine smile. "I'm fine. Really."

Steve deflates, running a hand through his hair, mussing up the side-part. He hands Tony the clothes and steps aside so he can get to the door.

The hallway ends up being grey and black, _thank god; he hates white,_ and now that he's out of that room he can feel a low humming vibration under his unsteady feet. He's on the Helicarrier. He can see the door of the bathroom Steve pointed out, and Jesus, even the men's sign is chrome. Tony pushes the door open and inside it looks like the SHIELD version of a public bathroom (albeit, better cleaned). He's probably in the infirmary wing.

Tony gets changed in one of the stalls. SHEILD people are posh, though, so a "stall" consists of a toilet with a sink and mirror. He splashes some water on his face to clear his head and takes stock of his injuries. When he breathes in, there's a sharp pain in his chest—though it's not wrapped—so most likely cracked or badly bruised ribs. A large patch of gauze is slapped on his thigh and reveals black stitching when he peels the corner off, and his whole right forearm is wrapped up along with a sprained wrist. Three of his fingers are bound together, with ugly purple bruises splattered across his shoulders. Judging by the bruising and injuries, he probably landed on his right side. Overall, though, he looks remarkably well for someone who just fell from airplane height.

Tony pulls his shirt on and the injuries are covered up. Steve must have brought clothes from HQ, because he doubts SHIELD supplied injured people with ACDC shirts and jeans. Also boxers. SHIELD agents probably all wear—nope, he's not going to think about that.

He limps back down the grey hallway to Steve, who's waiting anxiously outside of his now-empty hospital room.

"Hey," Tony says, slightly out of breath. Shit. He shouldn't be this winded from walking down the hallway. "I forgot to ask—where's the rest of our merry band?"

"They were all with you earlier, but now Clint and Natasha are dealing with Director Fury," he answers. "Now that he knows you saw or heard some things that aren't true—hey," Steve protests, seeing Tony's accusing look. "I believe you, remember? But that doesn't mean he does."

Tony just grunts. Fury can go fuck himself.

"—and I think that Bruce is helping Ms. Potts and Coulson with the media." Steve had never called Pepper anything other than "Ms. Potts." She thought it was adorable, naturally. Also, yes, Coulson was alive. No, Tony did not expect it. Yes, he fucked up all of Fury's systems as retaliation for keeping it from them.

The content of Steve's sentence hits him suddenly. "Whoa, wait, media?"

Steve looks uncomfortable again, staring past Tony's shoulders. "Tony, a lot of people think it was a suicide attempt. They don't know anything else."

Tony rolls his eyes and huffs. "Shit," he murmurs.

"I called a jet for us," Steve says in a transparent ploy to change the subject. "We should get to HQ in a few hours."

"Yeah, okay."


	3. Chapter 3

Hawkeye and Black Widow join them in the airplane hangar, Clint flicking his eyes over him quickly and Natasha sneaking a single glance. It's their way of checking up on him.

Steve falls back to talk with Natasha. "How'd Fury take it?" He asks lowly.

Maybe they think he's deaf and can't hear anything they're saying. Clint is very obviously eavesdropping as well, hovering a step behind Tony as if to make sure he won't fall. He's touched by Clint's concern, really, but Tony is a big boy and can take care of himself.

Of course, because the universe hates Tony Stark, after he has that thought his injured leg buckles beneath him and he falls on his face.

Clint, because he's an ass about things like this, snickers loudly before offering him a hand up. Tony just glares at him and climbs to his feet, ignoring Clint's stupidly unhelpful hand. Steve has his crumply worried face on again, and Natasha looks supremely unconcerned. Dickheads.

They somehow make their way to the quinjet Steve called—and wow, Tony forgot how much he hates SHIELD equipment. They're like Abercrombie or something, branding their logo over everything.

The jet is empty, because everyone on the Helicarrier knows that while they may work together, the Avengers don't trust SHIELD—not after the World Security Council sent the nuke to Manhattan. So when they take jets, Clint, Steve, or Natasha flies. Though Steve is not a first choice, considering he did go kamikaze with the first plane he got.

This time, Clint's available and he likes flying the most out of all of them anyway, so he runs ahead of Tony and practically leaps into the pilot's seat. Natasha rolls her eyes as she moves to go sit in the co-pilot's seat and mutters something that sounds a lot like "idiot" under her breath. Steve and Tony sit uncomfortably in the cargo-like passenger hold of the quinjet as Clint gets the plane ready for flight and puts a black headset over his ears. They take off into blue skies; Tony fiddling with the StarkPhone Steve had thoughtfully put in his jeans pocket. He checks up on recent news, and wrinkles his nose when he finds articles with headings like, "Iron Man: Exclusive look at his major problems and how fucking insane he is—look, he jumped from 30,000 feet and sees things that aren't real!"

Okay, maybe that's not quite what they said. But that's the gist.

Steve leaves him alone, quietly talking to someone—most likely Coulson—on the phone. The jet is quiet, with occasional murmurs from Clint and Natasha in the cockpit. Tony tunes them all out and wonders how Pepper and Bruce are coping with these wonderful headlines on his mental health. The jet is coasting through dark grey clouds, humming slightly—

No. This is wrong. They took off into _blue skies._

Tony furrows his brows, opens his mouth, and all of the warning systems in the quinjet go off, shrieking and blinking. There's a flurry of noise and movement from his teammates, and someone is shouting, and the back of the quinjet is blown away in an explosion that smells of electricity.

For the second time in the past couple days, Tony falls, sucked out in a vacuum of wind.

This time he's caught, however, with a grunt of pain on his lips and a thunder in his ear.

"I am sorry, Tony Stark," Thor murmurs in his ear, and how could he not see it? Grey clouds, _storm clouds,_ and he can't believe he was so blind—but then again, he can't believe that it's Thor, either.

He's set down on the top of a fucking mountain or something, and Thor shoots back up into the sky like, hah, a lightning bolt. The quinjet stays precariously aloft, tipping to one side—looks like Thor took out one of the covered propellers. Fiery debris rains down, little sparks stinging Tony's exposed arms. Wind whips through the air in sharp slashes, ruffling his hair and pulling his clothes.

He braces his legs, grinding his heels into the dirt, and pulls up video feeds on the Helicarrier. Because Tony has a hunch and his hunches are usually right.

This is one of those times, and the Helicarrier is burning.

One of the propellers is down, but it looks like they've managed to land it in water, unlike that time pre-New York. Jets and planes of all sizes are taking off into the air like swarms of black flies, firing at—

Thor. Thor and _Loki._

He can see Thor's red mantle whipping in the storm as he brings lightning down from the sky. Loki—_god, Loki_—is wearing his whole leather-and-metal costume, minus the goat horns, wielding a carved metal staff that splits at the end into three wickedly pointed prongs. A tempest of thunder and rain and magic whirls around the two of them, throwing off any SHIELD jet that gets close. Thor and Loki move seamlessly together, fighting in a way that speaks with years of experience.

Part of the Helicarrier is flooding, the damaged propeller sucking water into a hole in the side of the ship. Tony doesn't know what the fuck Thor is doing, working with their enemy that they locked away and destroying SHIELD.

His view suddenly tilts to the side as Loki smirks smugly seemingly _through_ the camera, his eyes dark and boring into Tony's. A blast of green sparks hits and his screen shuts off. Because he hacked into the jet cameras, Tony realizes; he was seeing through a pilot's eyes, and Jesus, they're going to kill everyone.

The quinjet, now mostly stabilized, flies down and hovers a few feet off whatever mountaintop he's on. The back is still smoldering a bit, wisps of smoke drifting into the air before being snatched away by the wind. A rope unrolls from the bottom with large knots tied at regular intervals. He grips the phone between his teeth and grabs ahold of the rope, feet planted on the bottommost knot. Steve and Clint are yelling, and he can see Natasha gritting her teeth tight with concentration.

The rope he's standing on is hauled up until he's level with Crumply Steve in his civilian clothes. Clint, behind him, is flipping switches and adjusting the energy distribution on the plane. Natasha and he are in their SHIELD uniforms, Clint with his bow and quiver strapped to his back and Natasha with both her guns and taser cuffs, but Steve and Tony are stuck without their usual weapons.

"What the hell is going on?" Clint yells from the cockpit, now helping Natasha keep the quinjet steady.

"Thor is what's going on," Natasha says grimly. "He isn't exactly hard to recognize."

Tony lets go of the rope with cold hands, red stripes from the weave imprinted in his skin. He unclenches his jaw and drops the phone into said hands, frantically trying to get footage of the Helicarrier back on it. The screen stays stubbornly dark. Steve and Tony buckle themselves into SHIELD's poor excuses for seats so they don't get sucked out like the last disastrous time, wind and rain still pouring through the gaping hole in the back of the jet.

Tony resigns himself that his phone is dead, through lightning or some kind of magic, who the fuck knows. He shoves it in his pocket—it's useless, now.

"It's Thor and _Loki,"_ he says. His voice tastes like mint and hot iron.

The plane falls abruptly silent, because they aren't, as a team, very prone to outbursts. They all have their snapping points, sure, but the only one who will yell or express their opinion on a regular basis is Thor. It brings his absence—_betrayal_—back sharply.

"Are you sure?" Steve asks. He's been quiet this whole time, and his face now is carefully blank.

"Yeah, pretty damn sure," Tony sighs, slumping in his seat. "They're attacking the Helicarrier." His brain is still frozen, stuck on the fact that _Thor_—

But they've got bigger problems. Like the fact that Steve and Tony have no weapons, or that their jet might not even make it back to the Helicarrier, or that Clint is sitting in the front seat looking like he's carved out of stone.

"We have to go back," Tony mutters. "We have to figure this out." Because he _saw_ Clint and Bruce fighting that thing, and he heard Steve's voice. Thor going batshit insane and attacking SHIELD is too much of a coincidence.

Steve looks at him for a long moment, and he looks tired.

"Go," Steve says, turning back to Natasha. "Go."

She nods, her eyes like daggers, and turns the jet around as smoothly as she can. Clint is rigid next to her, glaring ahead. But he's the one who enters in the necessary commands for them to shoot back the way they came.

The closer they get, the worse the storm is. The quinjet wobbles unsteadily and the wind is ripping anything that isn't nailed down out of the back. Every single movie Tony's watched has demonstrated the rule that flight-is-not-safe-with-a-hole-in-the-side-of-the-plane, but hey, the Avengers are just a ragtag bunch of rule-breakers anyway.

They make it back to the Helicarrier, still somehow in one piece. SHIELD's floating base looks like a warzone. Half of it is smoldering or blackened and the other half is fucking insane—and is that a giant squid taking down jets on the north side?

Before Tony can examine the squid-like creature any further, the SHIELD jets shoot it down, flying in an arrowhead formation. It makes a low keening sound that vibrates through his bones and crashes slowly back into the sea.

"I can't see Thor or Loki," Natasha says, making a slow arc with their quinjet above the Helicarrier.

Tony doubts that they're gone, though, judging by the fact that he can spot SHIELD agents running out of a maintenance staircase being swarmed by what looks like furry, bright orange wasps the size of basketballs.

Steve seems to have reached the same conclusion. "They're still inside," he says, voice snapping into captain-mode. He still looks intimidating, even in plain trousers and a t-shirt. Tony remembers Howard saying when he was a kid that Steve Rogers was a captain before he touched the serum, and he winces slightly.

Natasha and Clint somehow maneuver the jet down to a part of the Helicarrier that's miraculously not smoldering or covered in squid guts, warning them that they probably wouldn't be able to get the jet back. The SHIELD duo had all but murdered Tony when he suggested going down without them, though, so he guesses they'll just have to make do.

They hurry down a staircase, taking the steps three or four at a time. Once they get down to the main floor, Tony dashes into the first door he sees. Luckily, it's an office, and even better, there's a computer, which is what he was looking for in the first place.

He practically rips open the laptop and starts cracking the login password, pausing for a second to look up when he realizes the rest of his team is standing in the doorway in various states of bemusement.

"Go, go, go," he says urgently. "Find Thor and Loki and _distract them,_ Jesus. And I never thought I'd say this, but don't let them kill Fury."

"And what are you going to do?" Clint asks, his blue-grey eyes like chips of flint.

Tony waves a hand vaguely, already back to the laptop screen, and boo-yah, he's in. Now to hack SHIELD's terrible security. "I'll find you if it works."

"And if it doesn't?" Natasha this time. Her gloved hands are resting carefully next to her thigh holsters, and he knows she could whip it out in a moment's notice.

"Then we're completely fucking screwed," he says cheerfully. "Unless one of you has secret demigod-stopping-powers that you've been holding out on me."

None of them look enthusiastic or even remotely non-murderous at that, but Steve loads the SHIELD rifle he got on the way there with a loud click and hefts it.

"If we die, I'll kill your sorry ass," Clint tells him.

They leave, the door hanging open behind them. Tony goes back to the stupid SHIELD-issued laptop and hopes against hope that he won't be too late.

He finds what he's looking for; thank Fury and his pack-rat tendencies, holy Jesus. Tony runs to what is probably the exact opposite area of the Helicarrier than where he was, because of course Fury would put it far away. He's a bastard like that.

Once he gets what he needs – _god, they're heavy_ – he scrambles back to the main control area with the big fancy window. The intercom is crackling, units being ordered to various parts of the Helicarrier, but the one piece of information he needs—_Thor and Loki sighted on the bridge, all available units proceed there immediately_—is included. So Tony runs, and when he explodes onto the bridge after hacking the automatic-lockdown sequence on the door, he's met with chaos.

Steve is fighting Thor on some of the tables with what looks like a torn-off piece of metal. Computers are smashed all around their feet and sparks shower down from the shattered remains of florescent lights. Clint and Natasha are fighting Loki as a pair, Natasha with two knives and Clint with the splintered-off end of his bow and a mangled arrow. Tony can spot four doors leading to the bridge sealed with some sort of magical substance, SHIELD agents trapped on the other side.

The Avengers are running out of steam—after all, they're mortals fighting gods. Loki catches Clint in the chest with the butt of his spear, throwing him off the table, and Natasha snarls and drives one of her knives into his kneecap in retaliation. Loki staggers but regains his balance. Steve is just barely dodging Mjolnir, fighting defensively now.

Well, Tony didn't run off to Fury's storage room for nothing. He calibrates the weapons, fingers flying across the screen.

"Get down!" Tony yells, his voice cracking like a whip across the wrecked room. The Avengers all throw themselves to the floor, glass shards flying. Thor and Loki turn towards him, weapons raised, and Tony fires the Tesseract-powered cannons that had drawn Loki to Earth in the first place.

Twin bolts of blue energy hit the demigods square in the chest, slamming them backwards. The magical substance covering the doors vanishes, seemingly with Loki's consciousness, and SHIELD agents burst onto the bridge to apprehend Thor and Loki with their usual amazing timing.

As the agents start filling up the room and voices start barking orders again, Tony leans on the cannon and is hit with a sudden wave of exhaustion. He's been running on an empty fuel tank of adrenaline and caffeine for the past who-knows-how-many hours. Steve, Natasha, and Clint all seem to sigh at the same time and uncoil their muscles.

"The bastard broke my bow," Clint mutters after a while, and they all crack tired smiles in reply.

* * *

><p>SHIELD has Thor and Loki in separate cells. They (might) have learned their lesson after Loki escaped so easily pre-New York, because the cells this time are in a base hundreds of feet below the Earth. Tony thinks the base is in Iowa or Nebraska or something—the Helicarrier was off the East Coast, near New England, and SHIELD didn't want to risk Thor and Loki waking up on the transfer ride to the bigger base in Texas, so they get stuck with a secondary base.<p>

Tony doesn't think that any base will be strong enough to hold Thor and Loki if they really do want to get out, but Fury's eye is already twitching, so he won't argue out loud. It's bad enough that it's _Thor_ and _Loki _in there.

The cells are on opposite sides of the compound and the walls are reinforced with concrete and steel, requiring at least five checkpoints before even reaching the door. Mjolnir has been chained down in a separate part of the base in a room lined with adamantium. He can't see it from here, but he knows that Fury has gas ready to be released into their cells. Fury, or perhaps the World Security Council, is being very, very, careful.

The remaining Avengers are in one of the control rooms in the Iowa compound, staring down at the live security footage of the two cells. Fury steps up next to them, Coulson standing behind him, having joined them in Iowa with Bruce. They all stand in relative silence for a moment, the only sound being Thor's pacing on his screen. He keeps holding his hand out, as if to summon Mjolnir, before putting it back down with a conflicted expression. Loki, by contrast, is sitting with eyes closed, but there's a razor-sharpness to him that Tony can't deny.

He wishes he still had the Tesseract cannons, but SHIELD took them away. Bastards.

"Does anyone want to tell me what's going on?" Fury says lowly. "And why Thoris locked up with _Loki,_ a highly volatile enemy of ours that we _sent to another dimension?"_

Tony rolls his eyes. "Wouldn't we all like to know," he mutters.

Natasha hears him—_ugh, agents_—and rolls her eyes before saying, "We don't exactly know either, sir. Thor attacked our jet as we were en route back to Avengers HQ. We saw that the Helicarrier was under attack by both Thor and Loki, and returned to lend assistance. The last time I saw Thor was right before Steve and I came to inform you that he had been summoned back to Asgard." She looks at all of them with narrowed eyes. "Anyone else?"

Clint shakes his head. "Bruce and I hadn't seen the rest of the team for a few days," he says.

Steve looks at him, because, duh, Tony's the last person who saw Thor. "Tony?" He asks.

"Oh yeah, I saw him this morning. Had a nice conversation about how to destroy SHIELD over a cup of coffee."

"This isn't a game, Stark," Fury says tightly.

"Everything's a game to me," Tony says easily, eyeing the way that Fury's jaw twitches slightly. "And screw you, _Director._ The last time I saw him was yesterday morning," he says smoothly. "No, he didn't tell me anything except that he had been summoned back to Asgard."

There's silence after his statement, because really, none of them have any idea what to do.

"If none of you have anything to confess, then I'm gonna send my agents down." Ok, so Fury does have an idea of what to do, but his ideas are crap.

Tony coughs. "That is the worst idea I've ever heard," he says. Fury barely looks at him.

"Fine, then, Stark, if you're so inclined, you can talk to Loki," he spits out the name like a curse. "Agent Romanoff, you have Thor."

"Fine," Tony retorts, because he's petty and has a problem with authority. Fury looks surprised for a second before a frown etches itself onto his face. Tony squares his shoulders and starts walking toward the insane mischief god stuck in this god-awful base.

"Hey—Tony, you don't—" Steve calls after him, worried.

"If I die, you're still not allowed to touch my scotch," Tony says flippantly over his shoulder.

Steve makes a strangled noise behind him before Tony steps into one of SHIELD's elevators and his voice is cut off.

He makes his way to Loki's cage with a few directions from various SHIELD agents. None of them look surprised at his destination choice, so he figures Fury sent out a SHIELD memo or something on his fool's mission to Loki. The only sound in the florescent-lit hallways is his footsteps.

He goes through all the necessary security checks before coming to a safe-like door armed with two agents. One of them stops Tony with a hand on his arm. The guard's gloved grip is like a steel shackle.

"If you appear compromised," the guard says steadily through his helmet, "we are authorized to bring you down any way possible."

He looks young, with sandy hair peeking out from his visor and wide brown eyes. Probably one of the newer recruits, Tony guesses, sent down here to do the grunt work and to be the insubstantial barrier between Loki and the outside world. SHIELD's version of the redshirts.

The huge, heavy safe door opens silently. As soon as he steps inside, Loki's green eyes snap open and focus on him. A slow smile steals over his mouth.

There's still a wall of bulletproof glass that, if damaged, will lock down everything within a hundred foot radius and release gas into the cell. It separates Tony from Loki, but now it feels as insubstantial as paper. Loki has a _presence,_ and Tony hadn't noticed as much last time, but his skin is crawling.

"Iron Man," Loki purrs, and this was a really stupid idea. "I was not expecting you."

"I would say it's a pleasure to see you," Tony says guardedly, starting to pace. He's always thought better when in motion. "—but I would be lying."

Loki looks amused. "Would you?"

Tony grins, because two can play at this game. "Fairly sure, yeah," he replies, and shoves his hands in his pockets to rock back on his heels. Look relaxed, right. A bit hard since he's wound up tight with tension. "Why don't you start by telling me why you're here?"

"Do not think that I want to be. I'd rather face down Hel herself than be back in this disgusting realm."

Tony's eyebrows threaten to climb into his hair. "Yeah, forgive me for not believing that. You didn't answer my question."

Loki looks bored. "Why should I?"

Tony bares his teeth in a semblance of a smile. "Because there are a lot of people who are still bitter over what you did, and if you won't be helpful, there's no reason to keep you around." Tony is bluffing, because Fury wouldn't dare risk losing a bargaining chip like Loki, but the Director wouldn't pause to torturing him if Loki wouldn't give them the information they needed.

Loki puts his hands together and rests his fingertips on his chin, closing his eyes. "Don't lie to the God of Lies, Anthony Stark."

Tony narrows his eyes and resists the urge to grind his teeth together. His head throbs and he resists moving his bound arm. Instead, he coughs into the crook of his elbow.

Loki's eyes shoot open at the sound and he stares at him. There's a surprised look on his face, and he draws in a sharp breath before clamping his lips together tightly. "If you must know, I come with the permission of the _Allfather,"_ Loki says, his composure regained. His words are mocking but his face has been wiped blank. His shoulders suddenly hunch, curving forward in an almost defensive gesture.

Tony stares at him. What the hell was that? He blinks, hard, and schools his face into something less unprotected.

"And why did he send you back here?" Tony doesn't know what Loki is doing, or if he's even telling the truth, but there's nothing to do now except play along.

Loki stares at him guardedly, a sharp contrast to when Tony walked into here only a few minutes ago. "It is part of my sentence. Thor is only here to make sure I don't _disobey,"_ Loki spits. The blank face he put on earlier is showing cracks, something like fear creeping into the corners of his expression.

And he's staring at Tony.

Tony is confused, though he doesn't show it. Loki couldn't possibly be _afraid._ That doesn't even make sense. He clears his throat and it brings out a wracking cough that leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

Loki's gaze is skittering now, flicking between Tony and the door and the one-way mirror behind him set high into the wall. He fixes his eyes on Tony as he utters his next words.

"What, then, was your sentence?" Tony has to go on with the presence of an interrogation, but it's feeling like the tables are turned and that Loki is getting more out of this than Tony is.

"Torture. Imprisonment. That, apparently, was not enough for the Allfather, so here I am," Loki says with the barest hint of a smirk.

"The Midgard related part of your sentence," Tony elaborates unnecessarily. "Why are you here?" Loki knows what he meant and his lip curls.

"The Allfather believes that your people stole the Tesseract."

Well, shit.


	4. Chapter 4

Tony leaves soon after in a daze. He blinks back into himself when he's led back to the control room that Fury and the others are in, stumbling slightly as he steps over the threshold. It causes a jab of pain into his injured thigh.

Inside is chaos. Fury and Steve are snarling at each other while Bruce sits in a corner with his hands clamped over his ears. Natasha is trying to placate Fury with a hand on his arm, but the Director shakes her off angrily and she looks dangerously close to yelling herself. Clint is speaking lowly at Coulson, jabbing a finger into the agent's chest, something small and betrayed twisting his features.

Tony finds the wall panel that regulates the room and starts flicking the lights on and off in a kindergarten teacher's attempt to quiet the class. Everyone goes silent, but only to glare at him. Huh.

Fury is, of course, the first to break the hush that's fallen over the room.

"SHIELD didn't steal the fucking Tesseract," he growls. There's a vein pulsing in his forehead.

"Are you sure?" Steve retorts. "I seem to recall SHIELD using the Tesseract's power to create weapons before and then _lying_ about it."

"Ex_cuse_ me, do you think I have the resources to _break into—"_

"I think you would _try_—"

Tony slams his good hand down on the nearest convenient table and stares them down. Fury looks away, nostrils flaring, while Steve has the manners to look abashed.

"Look, this is probably exactly what Loki wanted. We just have to figure things out like the rational adults we are," he says bitingly. It's only a little bit sarcastic.

"We didn't steal the Tesseract," Fury repeats, sounding displeased. "I don't know what drugs Asgard has been dosed with, but SHIELD hasn't seen it since New York."

Bruce, who has finally decided to come out of his corner now that the screaming has stopped, fiddles with the silver watch on his wrist. "Wouldn't we have seen some evidence? Portals usually are accompanied by some sort of energy spike."

"Who says Earth stole it in the first place?" Tony asks. "All we really know is that _Loki _thinks the Tesseract is missing. Or wants us to believe that, anyway."

"And Thor," Steve says, eyes narrowed.

"Thor said so?" Tony turns to Natasha, surprised.

"Yeah," she says, her eyes flicking to Clint once before focusing back on him. "Summarized, he said basically the same thing Loki did. Tesseract missing, apparently Odin thinks that SHIELD stole it because of that whole fiasco in New Mexico, and part of Loki's sentence is to find it and return it to Asgard. Their stories matched up."

"Guess that's why they sent Thor along," Tony mutters under his breath. Raising his voice, he adds, "Of course, this is all based on the assumption that Loki and Thor are telling the truth."

"Did Thor look like he was acting under his own will?" Steve asks.

"There were no blue crazy eyes, if that's what you're asking," Natasha replies. "But he's never had a great resistance to Loki."

"That was before New York," Clint points out.

"We can't bet on the fact that Thor is trustworthy anymore." It's Fury, obviously.

"Loki doesn't have the scepter anymore," Steve argues. "Wasn't that what he was using to control people? If Thor seems lucid, then… unfortunately, he's probably telling the truth."

"So then what do you—"

Steve is cut off by a previously blank screen set into the wall that blares to life of its own accord.

_"Reports are coming in of a massive blue flare before the explosion occurred. It is unknown how many survived the blast, as it is estimated that there were at least 500 deaths and counting, but paramedics are on the scene now. There is still no word on what caused this immense tragedy, though it has, without a doubt, burned the building to the ground."_

The camera cuts to the wrecked shell of Stark Tower.

Tony blinks and stares, uncomprehending.

"Stark Tower," Tony says faintly. He scrubs his face with a shaking hand and grits his teeth. He can't breathe right, and sound is fading in and out, like static on a bad television. Tony is dimly aware of people muttering, exclaiming in horror. What the fucking hell? _Stark Tower. Burned the building to the ground._

There's a hand on his shoulder and he lashes out blindly, nearly clipping Bruce in the face. Bruce ducks and then looks up again, an urgent expression on his face.

"Tony, you need to get it together," Bruce hisses. There's a faint green tinge to his eyes and Tony stares at him wildly, not sure what he's asking. "Breathe."

Tony's chest is heaving in uneven gasps, but he does as Bruce says and tries to slow down his frantic heartbeat. In, out. His eyes snap open, the weight of the bombing rushing back to him.

"Shit. God, _shit."_ Jesus fucking Christ, _Pepper._ Was she in there today? What about Katherine Bewell, one of his managers for the lower levels? Or Jasper Tanaka, who guided all the new interns around? Stark Tower hadn't been an empty building for just himself, there was a goddamned business being run in there, and now it's burned to the ground.

Tony grabs for his phone, intending to call Pepper, but aborts the motion when he realizes that his phone is a useless piece of glass in his pocket from Thor's attack.

"I need a phone," he hears himself mutter. It feels like a dream. Time moves like molasses as he steps over to the SHIELD wall unit and punches in Pepper's number with locked fingers.

It rings, and rings, and rings. He closes his eyes and runs a shaky hand over his face.

_"Hello, this—this is Potts."_

He's glad his hand is covering his face so no one can see him so vulnerable. "Pepper," he breathes.

_"Oh my god, Tony? You're okay, right? I saw the news, god, I didn't know if you were in there today—I was so worried, you asshole—"_

"I thought—I thought you were working at Stark Tower for this week."

_"No, no, I got called out to a business conference in Japan. Jesus, Tony, what happened?"_ She sounds shaken and he will murder whoever did this.

"I don't know. But there's—" Tony raises his head, realization dawning with black rage. "Look, Pep, I gotta go. I'm glad you're okay."

_"Tony! Tony, you absolute—"_

He hangs up and _sprints_ down to Loki's cage.

Tony doesn't waste any time with bullshit security checkpoints and pushes back the stupid guards. His tower was _burned to the ground;_ he deserves some answers.

Loki is lying down on his back, cracking his knuckles in front of him and contemplating the ceiling. He raises an eyebrow when Tony comes bursting in.

"Back so soon?"

"What the fuck did you do?" Tony hisses, marching right up to Loki's glass cage. He's so close that his breath starts to fog on the smooth surface.

"Do?"

"My tower—the tower that you _attacked_—has been reduced to gravel on the street and I want to know why," Tony spits. His hands are clenched into white-knuckled fists.

Loki sits up, neatly folding his legs into a cross-legged position. He looks… unsurprised. "Shouldn't you be turning to your own government for that?" he asks. It's taunting but it doesn't look like Loki believes it.

"No," Tony says shortly. "SHIELD didn't do this. There's something weird going on here and you know what it is."

Loki tips his head to the side, a considering look on his face. "Reduced to gravel, you say?"

"Gravel and the bodies of all the people working there today," Tony replies in a strained voice. He stares at Loki in confusion, white-hot rage dimming somewhat. What is he playing at?

"I do believe you know what caused this."

"I wouldn't be _down_ here if I—" Tony starts, but then cuts himself off. Thinks. He berates himself for being so stupid, because he should have seen this coming. It seemed so _familiar_ that it subconsciously drew him down to Loki in the first place—because the only thing powerful enough to take out his entire tower while sending off a giant blue flare in the sky is the Tesseract.

Loki is watching him, an unreadable look on his face. So he and Thor were telling the truth about it being missing, then.

"Then who. Has. The Tesseract," Tony grits out.

"That is the question, isn't it?" Loki grins a mouthful of jagged edges and for the first time Tony can see a flicker of something unguarded cross his marble features. The fear from before is crawling back into his expression, his eyes glinting with a suppressed hysteria.

"The answer is already contained within you."

Tony stares at Loki like he's insane, which he probably is. "Cont—"

Before he can finish his sentence, Tony is seized with a coughing fit that drives him to his knees. He's clutching his throat and _god, he can't breathe;_ there are knives driving into his chest. His ribs were already messed up and this is not helping. Tony is dimly aware of Loki standing like a statue behind the glass before he's distracted. The coughs are getting worse, if that's possible, and now there's blood or something splattering the floor in front of him.

No, not blood. It's purple and slimy and now there's literally something crawling out of his throat. He's gagging and filmy violet liquid splashes on his hands and on his pants, the liquid dripping out of his nose and mouth. The _thing_ is moving in his throat and he feels sick.

Now there _is_ blood coming out with the purple liquid, ruby red drops mixing with indigo. There's a horrible, piercing pain in his chest, and liquid is filling up his throat and his lungs and he can't breathe.

Another spasm wracks his body and the thing comes slithering out of his mouth. It lands with a wet flop into the puddle of purple slime and blood on the floor, its iridescent, green-violet skin winking in the light. It's slimy and long with lots of legs like a centipede.

Tony stares at it for a second before turning and retching onto the floor. He hasn't eaten enough in the past 48 hours, though, and all that comes out is bile and blood. There's a guttural, moaning sound in the air and he realizes that it's him.

SHIELD agents and Avengers alike come blaring into the room. There's lots of yelling – wonderful, by the way, nice to know they cared – and a few of the SHEILD agents are dressed in what looks like HAZMAT suits. The agents won't let anyone touch him, not even Bruce, and Steve once again looks ready to persuade Fury the hard way. Tony thinks drowsily that maybe the agents have a good point though, as he did just puke out some kind of slug straight out of _Alien._

Weird multicolored spots dance in his vision and he thinks absentmindedly that that's probably not a good sign. His chest feels like it's splitting open and he's gasping for breath but all that fills up his lungs is liquid. Someone is leaning over him, a dark shadow against the bare white ceiling, and _when did he get on his back?_

Cool fingers press on his temple and abdomen, and Tony tastes mint and icy metal before he blacks out for good.


	5. Chapter 5

Tony wakes up flat on his back upon a freezing cold surface. He opens his eyes to twinkling white lights—stars, he realizes. But they're not any stars he recognizes.

Where the hell is he?

He sits up and realizes with a start that all of his injuries have vanished. The surface beneath him looks like marble, polished to a glassy finish. Tony looks around and holy fuck, he's not even on Earth. He's sitting on some sort of floating landmass, high spires of jagged rock breaking through the smooth marble floor haphazardly. In his peripheral vision he can see floating stone steps leading away from the island, down into the endless abyss of space.

"Tony Stark. The Iron Man," a voice rumbles. The voice he heard when he was flying on a false mission. The one that sounds like fire and snapping bones. Tony whips around and sees a tall rock throne that conceals its occupant.

"Not my first choice. Yet… you have become more important that you realize."

Tony wishes for once that someone would just explain something plainly instead of dancing around the issue with a bunch of cryptic bullshit. And yes, he's also talking about Loki.

The voice speaks again, startling him. This time it's rough and jagged, like screeching metal.

"I have a message."

"Let me guess—not for me," Tony dares, his heart in his throat.

"So it is smarter than it looks," the voice says, mock surprised. Tony can hear the shark grin embedded in the words. "This message is for Loki Laufeyson."

The voice is as deep as a rolling thunderstorm when it utters the next words.

"Tell him… Thanos is coming for him personally."

Tony wakes with a start.

He opens his eyes blearily, holding the image of the dream tight in his head, willing it to be imprinted in his memory. "Thanos?" He mutters to himself.

Loki is suddenly very, very close to his face.

"What did you say?" He hisses.

Tony does not give an unmanly yelp. Really. "What the hell?"

Loki grips his shoulders tight, and Tony feels like that should hurt more than it does. Didn't he fall from airplane height? Come to think of it, his arm and fingers aren't bound up and he can move them freely. He's… healed. But whatever it was, it wasn't natural.

"I asked," Loki snarls, "What. Did. You. Say."

"I didn't say anything!"

"You did," Loki says. He looks feverish, his pale skin containing an unhealthy flush. "You did. Tell me what it was."

"I…" Tony stares at him, nonplussed. What's going on, with Loki half out of his mind with something Tony mumbled about a dream? "Thanos. I said Thanos."

Loki goes whiter than a sheet. "Where did you hear this?"

"I don't fucking _know."_

Loki digs icy hands into his newly healed shoulders and Tony grunts. He squirms and finally yells out, "A dream, okay? I just woke up. It didn't mean anything."

"Dreams are more important than you realize. Tell me."

"It wasn't anything," Tony grunts. He's uncomfortably aware of how close Loki is. "I was in a—a rock throne room or something. In space. And there was a voice—" Tony swallows. He still doesn't know if he imagined the whole situation before the fall. "And it said to tell _you_, 'Thanos is coming for you personally'."

Loki lets out a shuddering breath and slides onto the floor to pace. Tony is unnervingly relieved. Now that he has a chance to look around without Loki practically straddling him, he realizes that he's in Avengers HQ, not the Iowa SHIELD base.

Tony sits up and okay, he's not as healed as he thought. There's a queasy, lurching feeling in his stomach and he blinks his eyes to clear the dizziness that's suddenly sprung up. Cured—how was he cured, anyway? The last thing he remembered was coughing up… something. Something that had lots of legs and slimy scales.

"I cured you," Loki says from his pacing by the bed, and oops. Tony's been doing that thing where he spews out his internal narrative. "In return, your Avengers allowed me to be locked up here instead of with SHIELD."

"Locked up?" Tony looks around, but his room looks the same as always, no extra security precautions put in place. Odd. And not… _right._

"And they left you alone with me," Tony says flatly. Whatever this is, it's not normal protocol.

Loki's lip curls. "As I am the one who managed to keep you from dying, it wouldn't be prudent to keep me hours away if you relapsed. Once I explained the situation to your teammates, they were quite happy to comply."

"And what," Tony asks slowly, "—is the situation?"

Loki narrows his eyes. "Somehow, you were infected with a Chitauri brain parasite. One of the rarer and probably deadlier kinds. Something triggered it and it expelled itself from your system as a self-defense mechanism, possibly a second exposure to my magic. The expulsion of the parasite would have killed you if not for my help, which I graciously offered in return for a safe passage out of SHIELD."

Brain parasite. What the hell? A _Chitauri_ parasite, no less.

But it's a _brain parasite._

"What does it do?"

Loki stops pacing long enough to give him a strange look. "I don't have… much experience with them," he says. It sounds painful for him to admit. "But I believe that loss of control, hallucinations, memory problems, and excruciating pain wouldn't be out of the question."

Ah, fuck. Hallucinations. The Atlantic. At least Tony knows (thinks) that he's not insane anymore. But—

"My team," he mutters, and Stark Tower, the Tesseract, he has to figure out who did that. And the parasite formerly living in his brain – where did that go? He can't lie around in bed; Tony doesn't do lying around when there are this many problems.

As he's starting to get out of the stupidly comfortable bed, Loki snaps, "Sit down," and flicks his fingers at Tony. An invisible belt slams him back down forcefully onto the bed, binding his arms and torso to the mattress. He squirms, trying to get out of it.

"What do you want?" Tony says angrily, trying to cover up the panicky feeling spreading through him like poison. He hates being constricted, especially around his chest, where the arc reactor sits.

"I won't have you dying on me when you are my passage out of here," Loki snarls. There's something else lurking underneath his gaze, though. Something that tells Tony maybe this is a test. Unless Loki is planning on killing him, in which maybe he was just waiting until he got Tony alone.

Tony stops struggling long enough to look him up and down with a searching gaze.

"Thanos," he says, a touch desperately.

Loki's head snaps up. "What?"

"Thanos. You said that the answer to whoever had the Tesseract was 'already contained within me.' I puke out a Chitauri brain parasite and then have a supposedly accurate dream, containing the name 'Thanos.' Whoever Thanos is has something to do with all of this."

Loki tilts his head, looking slightly less murderous and more inclined to considering.

"Bruce and I can try to track the Tesseract," Tony cajoles. "Let me help you."

It's the wrong thing to say.

"Why would I need a mortal's help?" Loki sneers. The bond tightens on Tony's chest and he wheezes. "I don't need you and I certainly don't need the _Avengers."_ He spits the name out like poison.

Tony glares up from his paralyzed position. "You're the one trapped in our headquarters, if you didn't remember. Don't tell me you don't need any _help,_ because your idea of recapturing the Tesseract was trying to blow up the Helicarrier. Now, why are you hanging around? I have no doubt you could escape any time if you wanted to."

A muscle tightens in Loki's jaw and there's something knowing in his face, but he doesn't answer.

"Look," Tony sighs. He wants to pinch the bridge of his nose to relieve his throbbing headache, but his arm is currently being held hostage. "You aren't the only one involved in this now. Stark Tower was blown up, my work was destroyed and _my people_ were killed. You may try to find the Tesseract and Thanos on your own, but don't think for a _second_ that I'll give up just because you had first dibs."

Loki clenches his hand into a fist so tight his knuckles turn white. "I don't want your help. I want you to stay away," he grits out.

"I don't care," Tony fires back. "I'm not telling you what to do. I'm telling you that I will be tracking down the Tesseract. Whether you choose to interfere or not is your choice, but know that if you try in any way to stop me I will cut you up into so many pieces you won't ever have a chance of healing."

"A bit of an ambitious goal, for a mortal," Loki says disdainfully, but there are cracks in his marble façade. The pressure on Tony's chest releases and Loki turns his back to him. "Leave," Loki says. "I don't want to see your face again."

Something shifted in the air. Tony doesn't know when or how, but something changed. He opens the door and leaves in silence. He doesn't know what Loki's game plan—

The door was unlocked when he opened it.

What?

Tony tries to go back into his room, but the door has mysteriously locked itself again. _Shit._

He's dressed in the same clothes he had on outside Loki's SHIELD cage and for who knows how many hours, but he's barefoot. His phone and communicator are both gone. Looking around, he confirms his position in his own room and runs to the nearest elevator.

The elevator doors open in silence and he slams a hand on the button for the main floor.

"Jarvis?" Tony pants. The short sprint has winded him more than it should have and the queasy feeling is back in his stomach.

_"Sir,"_ Jarvis says. He sounds surprised, if that's possible. _"How are you awake at this time? My scans showed that you were supposed to be unconscious for a number of hours."_

"I have no idea," Tony mutters. He still doesn't know what the hell is going on. "Where's the team?"

_"In the common room, though I do not think—"_

The opening door cuts Jarvis off and Tony sprints out of the elevator. "Guys," he pants, skidding to a halt, "we have—"

Steve and Bruce are sitting tensely in the common room. There's no sign of Clint and Natasha and Tony guesses that they're at the shooting range or sparring. Steve stands up, looking startled. "Tony!" He says. "What—how are you awake right now?"

"I just woke up. By myself. Well, I mean, Loki was there, and that was a little creepy, couldn't you have warned me first?"

"Tony, slow down," Steve shakes his head and looked at him perplexedly. "Loki?"

"I thought—you brought me here. With Loki. He healed me, right?" Tony says. God, he's so confused.

Bruce and Steve are both looking at him strangely, and shit, this is familiar.

"Tony, Loki healed you, but as far as I know he's still in Iowa," Bruce says.

Tony wants to bang his head against a wall. Since he may or may not have had a Chitauri brain parasite, though, he settles for getting a scotch instead.

"Okay," Tony says after he's downed a glass. "Can you walk me through what happened? I think I'm a little out of it." He grins reassuringly.

It's a blatant lie, because he remembers everything, but he's already looked crazy enough in the past few days. Better not be committed to a mental ward.

Steve looks really, really freaked, but that's probably because Tony already hallucinated everything earlier with the whole "flying over the Atlantic" thing.

"You coughed a huge centipede thing when you went back down to Loki's cage. We—well, we let Loki cure you, but you were dying, Tony," Steve appeals. "Loki said the thing was a Chitauri brain parasite. After we were sure you were stabilized, we brought you here. Ah… alone. I think Fury is still at the Iowa base with Thor and Loki."

Chitauri brain parasite. So that part of Tony's maybe-hallucination in his room was true. The whole thing with Loki in his room actually feels real, but then again, so did the Atlantic incident. He just doesn't know anymore.

_"Sir,"_ Jarvis says gently. "_I apologize for disturbing you, but Director Fury is on the line."_

Tony raises his eyebrows at Bruce and Steve. "You were saying?" He turns away from them. "Jarvis, put him on."

_"Stark. Loki's escaped."_

Steve mutters something under his breath and Bruce shoves his hands in his pockets with displeasure. Tony just rolls his eyes.

"Of course," Tony says resignedly. "Got any other amazing news, Director?"

_"As a matter of fact, I do,"_ Fury says. Tony can detect the weariness in his voice. _"One, you get to help find Loki. Two, we're sending Thor over to HQ."_

"Find Loki? Fury, I have my hands full with whoever used the Tesseract to blow up my tower. Also, how do you know—"

_"Hold on a second. The Tesseract? That's what destroyed your narcissistic temple? How the hell did you—"_

"I used this organ inside my skull called a brain. You might want to try it sometime. And by the way, my 'narcissistic temple' had people—_civilians_—in it when it was blown up. Show a little respect."

_"Respect?"_ Fury snorts. _"Right. That's rich, coming from you. However, you're now an Avenger, so try to do your goddamned job and shut this down before anything else happens."_

Tony hangs up, a hot ball of anger throbbing in his chest. So Loki escaped out of SHIELD's mall-cop security and is who knows where. Damn.

Also, Thor is coming back to HQ—maybe as a prisoner, maybe as an ally. Who knows, Tony thinks bitterly. And he has to start tracking the Tesseract, and figuring out who Thanos is, and finding out all he can about Chitauri brain parasites. He hates the fact that there was something in his head possibly controlling him and he didn't even realize. He's just glad he didn't have to cut open his head to get it out.

Tony starts toward the kitchen, muttering, "Coffee," under his breath. He needs a boost of caffeine to get him started on this mess.

Suddenly, there's a sweater-covered arm barring Tony's way. "Nope," Bruce says, and starts pushing him backwards, towards the elevator.

"Hey," Tony protests. "No, I gotta go down to the workshop and start up the tracking algorithm again, and I gotta research, and—"

Bruce stops. "Tracking algorithm for what?"

"The Tesseract! What, do you think I've just been blowing smoke outta my ass this whole time?" Tony says crossly, using Bruce's brief distraction to scoot past him.

"Tony," Steve calls urgently from back in the common room, "How do you know for sure?"

"Yeah, as far as—hey, not so fast," Bruce says, snagging Tony's shirt collar and dragging him back.

Tony blows out a sigh and stares at both of them in exasperation. "Someone used the Tesseract to blow up Stark Tower," he says lowly. "Look, it's kind of hard to explain, but trust me on this. Didn't you see the news? Blue flare, massive explosion, personal significance? And don't you think it's strange that it's coincidentally at the same time that we captured Thor and Loki?"

Bruce looks uncertain, while Steve's expression is unreadable.

"I guess, but still—" Bruce begins.

"No buts. I have to look back into the explosion and start tracking the Tesseract. Move," Tony says, and attempts to shoulder past Bruce again.

"I don't think that'd be such a good idea," Bruce says, examining Tony closely through his glasses.

"Yeah," Steve says worriedly, stepping closer to where they're parked by the elevators. He has his crumply face on again. "You just—well, you just coughed up an _alien parasite._ Take it easy. Also, you don't look so great right now."

Tony is suddenly aware of the lurching feeling still present in his stomach. Come to think of it, he's also really, really, tired. He sways on his feet, blinking his eyes open—when did he close those, anyway?

"Let's go, Tony," Bruce sighs, and starts leading him… somewhere. That's okay, though, because it's Bruce. His science bro. It's all good here in HQ with his superhuman pals.

He's dunked on a bed that he thinks is his. Maybe.

"No, I don't want to dream," Tony protests weakly.

He promptly falls asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

"Hey, Tony," someone whispers. Rough, calloused hands shake his shoulders. "Tony. Dude, come on."

"Whazzgoinon?" Tony slurs.

"You need to get up. Like, right now," Clint hisses. "We have a problem."

"God. _Fine,"_ Tony grumbles. He gets out of his nice, warm bed and puts on the cold, cold clothes that Clint hands him. "You're as bad as Jarvis."

Clint brightens a little at that before hastily scowling again. "Stop changing the subject. Look, I don't know the exact details but it's bad."

"What's bad?" Tony asks, tugging his shirt down and slipping his lost communicator into his pocket.

In answer, Clint says, "Jarvis, news," and his stomach drops.

_"A block in Brooklyn was destroyed only an hour ago. While the block itself was not highly populated, it holds immense historical significance as the location where Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America, was injected with the super soldier serum back in the 1940s. The explosion seems similar to the one at Stark Tower that occurred only yesterday. Are these terrorist attacks? Is someone targeting the Avengers? We are—"_

Clint shuts the screen off.

"Shit," Tony says loudly into the following silence.

"Yeah," Clint replies grimly. "Come on, we're having a meeting downstairs."

Tony follows Clint into the elevator—he thinks this qualifies for an emergency—and when they get to the meeting room he stops dead.

"Thor is here," Tony says dumbly. He's pretty sure he's gaping openly. Thor looks more tired than a god of thunder has any right to be, shadows darkening under his eyes and his hair unkempt. He may be in the meeting room, but Fury and his crew still clearly don't trust him. There are thick black chains wrapped around his wrists.

"Yeah, and so are Fury and Hill and Coulson and everyone else, so try _not_ to be an asshole, okay?" Clint whispers.

Tony scrubs his eyes blearily—he thinks that the sleep didn't help much at all—and slides into the empty chair next to Clint and Steve. When he looks up Fury is staring at him narrowly from across the table.

"Alright," Fury says, standing up to clasp his hands behind his back. "How about each of you tell me what you think is going on. We'll start with you, Stark."

Tony scowls and slouches back in his chair. Figures Fury would pick him first. "Fuck no. I just woke up," he groans, putting his head down on his arms.

_"Stark,"_ Fury repeats warningly.

Tony's thoughts start racing. Making connections. "What do you want me to say? Stark Tower and the location of Project Rebirth were both blown up within days of each other, which—well, putting that as a 'connection' to the Avengers is a bit of an understatement. Not to mention that SHIELD security is horrible and there's now a mad mischief god on the loose. Oh, and that I puked out a parasite coming from an alien race we supposedly blew up with a nuclear weapon."

Fury's eye twitches. "Loki is not our primary concern at the moment," he rumbles, shooting a look at Thor. "What we need to focus on is the fact that two places that should have been very hard to hit are now destroyed by whoever has the Tesseract."

"And what would you like us to do?" Steve says coolly. He looks tense, hands clenched into fists that are resting in his lap. His mouth is set into a thin line.

"Find it," Hill speaks up. "We need to track the Tesseract down before the bomber strikes again."

"I set up the tracking algorithm," Bruce says, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. At Tony's questioning glance, he adds, "When you were asleep. But the results are… spotty. I can't find a clear location or even a clear trail. It'll pop up and disappear, then reappear somewhere completely different. I can't tell if something's malfunctioning or if the Tesseract is actually moving like that."

"A teleporter," Thor says lowly. He raises his head and makes eye contact with Bruce. "The Tesseract isn't permanently on this Earth. It is travelling between dimensions."

Fury huffs out a breath. "Figures. Fine," he bites. "Send me a log of all the places it has appeared. Don't leave anything out."

Bruce nods and starts scribbling something in the notebook he brought. Clint and Coulson are having some non-verbal conversation across from the table, and not a person in the room looks relaxed.

"I want to check out the bomb site," Tony says abruptly, standing up.

Fury waves a hand dismissively. "I already have agents on location," he says. "They're combing the place."

"I'll go with him," Natasha says, and slides out of her chair silently to stand next to him.

Tony looks at her, surprised. She's earned his respect and him hers, but they've never been close. After her Natalie Rushman gig he never quite trusted her outside of the battlefield. To him, she'll always be a SHIELD agent first and an Avenger second—but maybe that can change. She's offering to go with him on a fool's errand that won't turn up anything, and that's got to count for something.

"Thanks," he murmurs to her as they're heading out of the meeting room.

"No problem," Natasha replies. She's dressed in civvies, but she still looks dangerous—she has that razor sharpness to her. Like Loki. Maybe it's the mark of manipulation.

"I'll get the car," she says, startling Tony out of his thoughts.

"What? No. SHIELD cars are hideous and so obviously SHIELD that it hurts. We're taking one of mine."

Natasha shrugs, and smirks. "Only if it's the new Porsche I saw you got."

"Can do, will do. Let's go."

Natasha winds up driving because she claims he's "too injured to drive this baby." An uneasy quiet settles over the interior of the car as they get closer to the bombsite. A black cloud of smoke hangs over the block and an acrid scent fills Tony's nose, an unnatural hush permeating the air. White flakes of ash drift down from the sky like snow.

SHIELD agents are indeed there, nice to know Fury was telling the truth, and they've closed off the whole place with caution tape and signs. Debris is scattered everywhere and Tony can see sprays of glass glittering on the remains of the sidewalk. Natasha parks the car a little ways from the bombsite, and the SHIELD agents let them through with a flash of her badge.

What used to be buildings has been reduced to ash. Nothing is left of the center of the block, which Tony assumes is where Project Rebirth was. It's as though the building never existed. The explosion was powerful enough to create a huge crater that Tony estimates is probably 20 feet deep. Burned debris and blackened concrete pieces are fringed on the edges, along with what looks like scorched bones. The air feels poisoned.

Tony starts picking his way down the steep walls of the crater, leaving Natasha standing doubtfully at the edge. She doesn't stay behind him for long, though, and soon she's bounding ahead of him on the broken slabs of concrete.

They reach the bottom of the crater, where the explosion was powerful enough that only dust remains. Tony's hands are soot-smudged from climbing over charred debris and there are ash flakes dotting Natasha's scarlet curls. A SHIELD agent starts to yell at them before Natasha turns to him and narrows her eyes, which shuts him up quickly.

"I don't know if you're going to find anything here that SHIELD hasn't already confiscated," Natasha says lowly, back still turned to him.

Tony stares out over the pitted landscape of debris and sorrow. "Yeah, just—just let me look for a second." He makes his way towards the middle of the crater, his feet leaving blurry footprints in the dust. He feels as though he's searching for something.

Tony stops at a point in the very center of the crater. He doesn't know why, but the place feels important. Like the shadow of something long dead and gone. White ash falls slowly from the uniform grey sky.

He looks down.

There's a Captain America doll lying broken at his feet, one that Tony recognizes. After New York there was an abundance of Avengers merchandise being made—he's guilty of some of that, but hey, it was a great marketing opportunity for Stark Industries. Tony had gotten each of the team one of the prototypes and written something stupid on it before throwing it at them. Needless to say that idea wasn't very good for his health and he spent the whole day running away from Natasha, but…

He picks up the figurine and turns it over in his hands. Sure enough, "I liked the old boots more. –Tony" is written across the ass in Tony's messy scrawl.

The doll's chest has a clean-cut hole on the left side of the chest, where the heart would lie, but the rest is miraculously unmarked. It feels like a taunt.

"Is that…" Oh. He hadn't realized Natasha had come up behind him.

She presses her lips together and the skin around her eyes tightens. "How did it get here?"

"It's a message," Tony says with absolute surety.

Natasha stares at him with hardened blue-green eyes. "From who?"

Sighing, he says, "I don't—" before whipping his head towards the edge of the crater. _Flicker, flicker._ There's a shadow in his peripheral vision.

Stumbling over rubble and wreckage, Tony starts climbing up the side of the crater, the Captain America action doll clutched tight in his hand. He ignores Natasha's call of surprise when he takes off and is heedless of the fact that she starts running after him.

Something is drawing him towards the taunting flickers. He runs past the SHIELD tape and weaves around startled agents. There's ash getting in his mouth and he coughs, eyes watering. But the shadow is there, just out of his reach.

Tony slips into an alleyway, following the small movements he can see out of the corner of his eye. The buildings around him are old, the brick mortar worn out and crumbling, windows dark and shuttered closed. A broken down Honda sits forgotten in the corner, slightly rusted through. Cardboard and garbage lay soggy underfoot.

He can't see the shadow anywhere.

Suddenly, there's a thin sliver of metal pressed to his throat and a lean body pressed up behind him.

"Hand over the toy, love," Loki hisses into his ear. Long fingers press Tony's head forward towards the blade. The black spikes of Loki's hair tickle his shoulder.

"No thanks," Tony gasps out.

The knife digs into his throat, a thin trail of blood trickling down his neck. "Oh, don't make this harder than it already is," Loki drawls.

In answer, Tony tightens his fingers around the Captain America figure.

Loki exhales slowly. "Fine," he says, and there's a smirk on his face; Tony can feel it curling up against his ear.

As quick as a striking snake, Loki's hand is gripping his wrist so tight that Tony can feel the bones starting to grind together. He grits his teeth in pain but can't move for fear of the razor-sharp knife still digging into his throat.

Loki's hand tightens even more, if possible. Tony can practically hear his wrist creaking.

His fingers spring apart from around the doll unwillingly. Loki snatches it up before it hits the ground and Tony's hand goes limp, his wrist throbbing dimly.

"There, now," Loki says, tilting his head. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

"What the hell are you doing?" Tony asks through clenched teeth.

"Oh, don't be dull," Loki says. He sounds annoyed. "You knew I would be tracking down the Tesseract. You have your ways, I have mine."

"The Tesser—" Tony narrows his eyes. "Were you in my room yesterday?"

"I was," Loki says lightly, but there's tightness underneath the words. "Why, did you think it was a… hallucination?" He asks slyly.

Tony stares straight ahead and mentally promises to murder Loki when he has the chance. Though it is nice to know he wasn't hallucinating the incident in his room yesterday. "So how's life as a free man?" He grits out. He doesn't like this subject; let's move along now.

"Wonderful," Loki says sarcastically. Tony can tell that he's aware of the diversion, but he surprisingly lets it go. "There's a mad being on the loose with an extremely powerful object who wants—" Loki pauses, as if he's rethinking his words. "—who wants nothing but death."

"That's great," Tony exhales, trying to squirm away.

Loki lets him go abruptly and steps back a few paces. Tony stumbles, unbalanced, and turns around quickly to face him, but Loki has vanished. There's only the empty alleyway and falling ash.

"Sweet dreams," the wind whispers in his ear. He sucks in a breath smelling of mint and frosty metal.

Pounding footsteps reach his ears and Natasha skids into the alley, her red curls askew.

"Tony Stark," she growls. Oops. "I am going to kill you."

He grimaces. "Loki was here."

Her murderous look doesn't disappear in the slightest, but now at least it's not directed at him. "When?" She asks.

Tony likes that about Natasha. She doesn't yell or waste time with unnecessary words, she goes right to the important questions.

"Two seconds ago, and that's not an exaggeration. He disappeared right before you ran in."

Natasha's eyes narrow. Something flickers in her eyes, but before Tony can identify it she shuts down her face firmly. "What did he do?"

"He threatened me like a good little villain before taking the Captain America figure. Said he needed it," Tony answers, looking at her closely.

"Did he say anything else?"

"Just that he was using it to track the Tesseract," he lies. He doesn't want to go into the details of what Loki said—actually, he doesn't want to even think about it. Explaining it to Natasha would require explaining that Loki breached HQ's defenses and made Tony think that Loki was a hallucination.

Natasha's jaw gives a tiny twitch. She's suspicious. Shit.

"Loki is tracking the Tesseract?"

"Guess he is now," Tony says. He looks away from her, to the ash-covered street. "We better get back to HQ. There's nothing more here."

Natasha looks unconvinced, but she follows him as they take the drive back to HQ in silence. There are ash flakes covering the both of them and it's getting all over the car interior. Tony is too numbed by Loki's visit to care, and Natasha keeps her hands on the wheel, though she does brush off a few flakes onto the floor irritably. She keeps shooting him glances when she thinks he can't see.

When they step inside HQ the mood is grim. Clint skids to a halt in front of them the moment Tony and Natasha get inside, talking agitatedly about Stark Tower as he drags them downstairs to Bruce's lab.

When they get there, the lab is abuzz with activity, a far cry from how serene it usually is. Bruce is examining something at a table, gloved hands occasionally making notes on a tablet. Steve is pacing around and around the room, alternating between snapping questions at Bruce and making his crumply face. Thor is sitting at a bench with a furrow between his brows. His hands are still bound in the black manacles, and the air is tense around him.

Tony sees what Bruce is examining and stops dead.


	7. Chapter 7

It's an Iron Man doll from the same batch of prototypes as the ones he gave his team. Only this time, instead of the heart cut out as with Steve's, there's a gaping hole where the arc reactor sits. He looks closer and sees that the hands are cut off as well, the shiny red forearm guards ending in stumps.

"What—" he chokes out. "Where did you find that?"

All eyes in the room turn to him. Steve stops bickering with Bruce and grimaces in his direction.

"We went to the Stark Tower bombing site after you and Natasha left," he begins. "It was completely destroyed, except for, well…" Steve gestures vaguely in the direction of the doll. "That."

Tony can feel Natasha as still as a statue behind him.

Steve continues agitatedly, sensing Natasha and Tony's unease. "We'd normally turn this over to forensics at SHIELD, but Bruce wanted to check it over first before they got their hands on it," he hesitates. "Did you—did you guys find anything?"

"Yeah," Tony says roughly, before Natasha can speak up from over his shoulder. "Yeah, except it was a Captain America one. The toy prototype I gave you after New York, you know, where I complimented your boots."

"The exact same one," Steve says, incredulous and a little bit afraid. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Or else it's a damn accurate copy."

A heavy silence follows.

Tony doesn't know what the others are thinking, but he knows that two data points are enough to at least predict a pattern. They're just waiting on a third to solidify one.

"What happened to it?" Steve asks finally.

"Loki," Natasha says crisply, shooting him a glance out of the corner of her eye. "He took it from Tony, but I don't know the full story."

Thor's eyes darken and he stares at Tony intensely. "Loki," he repeats flatly. "He appeared to you?"

Tony snorts, eyeing Thor uneasily. "Yeah, long enough for him to nearly slit my throat and take one of our only leads," he says.

"Nearly slit your throat?" That was Bruce, looking at his neck closely from his position by the examining table.

"He harmed you?" Thor rumbles at the same time.

"I'm fine," Tony says irritably. He can tell they've all spotted the thin trail of dried blood winding its way down his neck. As discreetly as he can manage, he scrapes the blood off his throat with his fingernails. Scabbed flakes dust the collar of his shirt.

"Did he say why he wanted it?" Clint asks, waving his hand vaguely. "The Cap figurine, I mean." His shoulders are drawn up tight from the mention of Loki.

"Yeah," Tony says. "Said he needed it to find the Tesseract." He looks to Thor unwillingly, but he's the only one with experience in this type of situation. "Have any idea why?"

Thor looks uneasy. "Loki is most likely performing a tracking spell on the object. If whoever wields the Tesseract has touched the figurine recently, he will be able to find them."

"Well, that's a pleasant thought," Clint mutters darkly under his breath. Thor continues, speaking over him.

"But it does not make sense that Loki would continue on his sentence set for him by the Allfather without my presence requiring him to do so. If he is searching for the Tesseract, I fear that it is for personal gain."

Steve exhales through his teeth. "That's a… rather large problem."

Tony examines Thor through narrowed eyes as he paces, stuck on an earlier part of his statement. "Why didn't Loki just kill you when he was assigned his sentence?"

Thor looks resigned. "The Allfather has placed a spell on me. I cannot be wounded by Loki's hand. This is why he will most likely try to avoid any contact with me continuing onward."

Tony stops pacing, hands shoved loosely in his pockets, and raises his eyebrows. "Wow. That's… okay. But I don't know if 'personal gain' is all there is to it. Loki mentioned another big power player, someone who might have the Tesseract."

Natasha raises an eyebrow. "And you're just telling us this now?" She asks.

"Yes," Tony says tetchily.

"Did he say who it was?" Bruce asks, fiddling with the tablet he has lying next to him.

"Maybe. He said someone's name. I don't know if it was the bomber or not," Tony says. He realizes he never actually got confirmation saying that Thanos was the one with the Tesseract, but Tony suspects it. He just knows it's all connected.

"And?" Steve says, raising his eyebrows and looking at Tony expectantly.

"Thanos. That was the name he said." Well. The name Tony dreamed, and the name Loki seemed genuinely afraid of.

Steve turns to face their local Asgardian god. Ever the Captain, Tony thinks humorlessly. Always looking to plan the battle. "Thor? Mean anything to you?" Steve asks.

Thor looks mystified. "I have not heard that name, no. But there are many hidden places in between the realms. Loki has traveled the cosmos much more than I. He may have encountered this 'Thanos' on one of his journeys."

Clint huffs out a breath. "So we have no lead, no evidence, a _potential _suspect, and no idea where the Tesseract is," he ticks off on his fingers. "Where, exactly, were we going with this?"

"We have this," Bruce says, holding the Iron Man figurine gingerly. "I don't know if we'll be able to get anything off it, but I'm trying."

"Yeah, good idea," Tony says absentmindedly, turning around. "I'll come back and help you in a sec, I just gotta check on some things first."

"Hold on," Natasha says from her position next to him, snagging a sleeve with her finger. "Where are you going?"

"Workshop," Tony replies, tugging away. "Gotta go, science is calling!"

He practically sprints away from Bruce's lab, ignoring Steve's muffled protest from behind him. God, he has so many things to check on. A "sec" is a major understatement for how long he's going to take to figure all this out.

The workshop comes alive when he steps across the threshold.

"Prepare yourself, Jarvis, we have a lot of work to do," Tony says, clapping his hands together in anticipation.

_"There has been quite a lot going on,"_ Jarvis agrees smoothly. _"How are you faring, sir?"_

"Pretty good, considering the circumstances," Tony mutters. He spots the wrecked armor from when he fell into the Atlantic sitting on a table to the side.

He strides over to the big, cleared area that he uses a lot for drafting ideas, intent on pulling up every scrap of information that he can find on everything that's been happening lately.

"Alright. Jarvis, can you access the video feed in the Mark XIV and pull that up on the right? Also, get me SHIELD's files on Loki and the Tesseract over… here," he directs, gesturing toward the center of the table.

_"Coming right up, sir."_

Tony starts pulling up any pages he can find containing the words 'Thanos,' 'Chitauri,' 'brain parasite,' or any combination of the three on the left hand side. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the video feed loading and the SHIELD files he requested popping up seemingly endlessly. The information is lighting up in a U-shaped halo around him.

He decides to go in chronological order and tackle the video feed first. With a knot of dread in his stomach, he says, "Jarvis, play it," in a firm voice.

Tony fast-forwards through some of the empty footage of transport. He stops just short of when he thinks the call from Steve comes in and watches, his heart somewhere in his throat.

There's no call. There's nothing.

He's talking to himself inside the helmet.

Fuck, this looks a lot worse than it felt. It's not much more than what he suspected, but seeing it—seeing _himself_—makes it a lot more real all of a sudden. And maybe he had held out the slight hope that it wasn't all in his head, that maybe someone had planted a call or something. After all, the fact that Loki was in his room turned out to be real, right?

The video continues on, but there's no static, no fiery voice. His systems shut down, yes, but Tony can't tell if it's a malfunction or a manual decision. The video is effectively useless in helping him find whoever it is. He slices his had through the air and the screen blinks out of sight.

"Jarvis, put this on my private server. Don't allow anyone access."

Jarvis beeps to confirm, already setting up the necessary security measures.

"Okay, moving on," Tony mumbles. "Moving on, moving on. Right."

Twitching his fingers, he directs the holographic pile of SHIELD files to spread out over where the video feed had been residing.

"Mind separating the Loki and Tesseract files?" Tony asks.

_"Already done,"_ Jarvis says, the files reorganizing in a matter of seconds.

"Thanks," he says absently. Tesseract first, then the vengeful reindeer asshole.

Tesseract. Weapons designs, no. He's already seen that, thanks. Tony swipes those to the side into a 'discard' pile. Origin: not Earth. Why is he not surprised? Was on Earth for a while, though—with Captain America and Red Skull back in the '40s, he remembers stories on _that._ Then of course there's the whole New York shebang.

Tony skims over something that makes him pause. Erik Selvig's scanned notes from his time working with the Tesseract. Now that's something he can use.

The notes are helpful in providing general information on the Tesseract, but they don't tell him what he needs. It's not until he spots a tiny note in the margins that he realizes how deep of a hole they've dug themselves into. Tony clenches his hands on empty air and stares at the stupid, tiny hypothesis of Erik Selvig's that'll most likely destroy them.

In small, curling script, the note says, _"I believe that the energy that the Tesseract is able to release currently is only a fraction of what it is capable of. With the right kind of trigger, it could be possible to release the energy into something that could power—or obliterate—something as large as our solar system."_

The note goes on to talk about possible ways to release some of the energy to power something, but that's old news. These notes were probably made before Fury recruited Selvig to help tap into the Tesseract's energy to make weapons. Either way, Tony's mind is stuck on that one small piece of information—

_Could obliterate something as large as our solar system._

Solar system. What the fuck.

Whoever has the Tesseract right now, whether it's Thanos or Loki or someone else entirely, has obviously figured out how to release enough energy to blow up a skyscraper and a city block. While the bomber may not realize the power that he has, it's unlikely. Which means—

Which means that the bomber is probably planning something a lot worse.

Stark Tower. Project Rebirth. What's next? Or more accurately—who's next? The obvious problem with a teleporter is that they have _no idea_ where the bomber is going to strike next—the only lead they have is that he or she is probably targeting the team. .

"Jarvis, start compiling a list of locations that are significant to the Avengers," he says, sucking in a quick breath and moving his hands back to the holographs.

_"It's generating now, sir."_

"I'll come back to that," Tony says, pushing the matter temporarily out of his mind and turning to SHIELD's files on Loki.

The workshop is mostly silent as he works through the files. There's the ever-present hum of Jarvis that he takes comfort in, and of course Dummy and Butterfingers whirring in the background. But otherwise the cluttered workspace is filled with a hushed quiet.

SHIELD's files on Loki are what he would call… inconclusive. There's surprisingly little information on him, other than detailed accounts of both of his visits. Tony supposes that SHIELD hasn't exactly had time to interview him. The full-body scans of Loki from his time at SHIELD both during the New York event and from the Iowa base are garbled and make no sense. He can only assume that they've been disturbed by the presence of Loki's magic.

Based on SHIELD's records, Loki is still a blind spot in their radar.

Tony discards Loki's files, finding nothing that he doesn't already know. Moving on to his last category of research, he similarly doesn't find anything containing the name 'Thanos.'

As for Chitauri brain parasites, everything he finds is barely credible at best. There's a lot of illegal research on smuggled Chitauri organs, but SHIELD shut down any respectable scientist with alien parts on his hands. The problem with the New York incident (besides the other obvious problems that come with an alien invasion) is that once the Chitauri hive mind collapsed, they left behind corpses and alien tech lying all over the streets. That same day, _boom,_ an alien black market was born.

Clicking rapidly through links, Tony skims over a lot of useless information about what acids will disintegrate Chitauri flesh and what affects the poisonous substance in their saliva have on human anatomy. Gross.

He does find a few sparse sources on bug-like skin parasites that have been found on Chitauri remnants, but nothing as large as the slimy centipede that he coughed up. Tony suspects that the information he needs on the parasite won't be originating from Earth.

Tony sighs heavily through his nose and sits his weight back, flicking the Chitauri pages in to the discard pile with Loki's files. It looks like he won't be solving anything about the parasite or where it came from today.

But that's his personal problem. The thoughts he'd blocked about the bomber start flooding back. _Obliterate the solar system._ It hasn't escaped his notice that all of the locations the bomber has chosen have high amounts of collateral damage. Tony turns to the list of significant Avenger-related places that Jarvis compiled, intending to start researching all of them.

_"Sir, might I suggest getting some food before you start your research?"_ Jarvis says, freezing the holograph screen. Tony checks the time, and shit, he's spent more time down here than he thought.

"Jarvis," Tony protests, jabbing at the traitorous holograph. "This is important. If we don't prevent the next bombing people are going to die." He's already come to the conclusion that there will, in fact, be a third bombing. Better to prepare for the worst in any circumstance.

_"If you will not feed yourself, I am required to warn you that Dr. Banner is approaching."_

Tony hesitates. Bruce is awesome and it's helpful to have his brain to bounce ideas off of, but Bruce will probably try and force food into him before he can work and he just doesn't have the _time._

"Send him away, I'm working," Tony says, because he's a dick.

Just then Bruce comes into the room. "Hey, Tony—"

"Jarvis," Tony growls. "I told you not to let him in."

_"May I remind you that you never specifically stated to 'not let him in,' you only—"_

"Yeah, yeah," Tony grumbles. He eyes Bruce suspiciously. "What do you want?"

Bruce raises an eyebrow at his tone. "I just wanted to know if you're okay."

"Okay?" Tony snorts. "I'm fine and dandy. Peachy-keen. Don't be a mother hen."

Bruce looks unconvinced. "You just had an alien parasite in you, and, from what Steve told me, experienced some pretty powerful hallucinations. Not to mention the fact that you encountered Loki again and that he, ah…" Bruce pauses, a smile toying at the corner of his mouth. "'Nearly slit your throat,' I think was the way you put it."

"'Twas but a flesh wound."

Bruce rolls his eyes. "You're an idiot," he says. "Come on; let me at least disinfect it. Who knows where Loki's knife has been. "

"I can do it myself," Tony sulks.

Bruce just gives him the most unimpressed look he's ever seen and starts walking towards the bathroom, Tony following helplessly in his wake.

Pulling the disinfectant out from under the sink, Bruce directs him to sit on the counter. Tony's all too glad to do so, because it puts his back to the mirror. He caught a glimpse of his reflection and had winced. There are purple shadows under his eyes and a couple days' worth of stubble darkening his jaw. He looks tired and haunted.

Tony resolves to clean himself up as he lifts up his chin so Bruce can see. His current expression won't work for the patented "Tony Stark Public Face."

Bruce mutters disapprovingly as he inspects the knife cut, which is kind of deep but not very long, because no matter what Bruce says he's a mother hen to the people he… he cares about. Though Tony doesn't really know how he got put in that circle, he's grateful.

The rubbing alcohol stings slightly, but he doesn't flinch. Bruce seals the cut and steps away, beginning to head out of the bathroom. Tony stands up, intending to inspect Bruce's work, when he notices the Princess Belle Band-Aid covering the cut on his throat.

"Beauty and the Beast? Really?" Tony asks. Bruce is already at the entrance of the workshop.

"You're welcome! Make sure you eat something!" Bruce calls over his shoulder.

"Why do we even have these?" Tony yells at Bruce's retreating back. He doesn't get an answer, though, and the workshop doors close with a hiss, leaving Tony staring at the door in the newly acquired silence. He realizes a beat too late that he never told Bruce about the potential power the Tesseract might hold.

It's definitely something worth mentioning.


	8. Chapter 8

Tony remembers his promise to clean himself up and starts getting out a razor and shaving cream from the emergency supply he keeps in the workshop. When he lifts his head up to look in the mirror, Loki is watching him.

Tony stifles a surprised squeak and looks in disbelief at him. "Holy shit," he yelps. He whips his head around behind him to check if Loki is actually _in the workshop with him_, but it seems as though Loki only exists inside the mirror. Tony pokes the glass in the spot where Loki is standing, but he only meets a cold, hard surface.

Loki frowns in Tony's direction, looking troubled. He touches his fingers briefly to the glass, where Tony's finger is, leaving spots of condensation. There's a freezing cold tingle that rushes down Tony's finger and settles in his chest, making him shudder. Loki turns and vanishes in a swirl of leather and green sparks.

"Thanks a lot for that," Tony tells the now empty mirror sarcastically. He's rattled. Is he still hallucinating?

He shaves, gets back the "Billionaire" look and loses the "Homeless Man" look. Tony stares for a moment at the bags under his eyes and decides that the tiredness on his face isn't going away any time soon, not with what's going on.

He checks the inside of his mouth compulsively and ends up brushing his teeth because his breath smells like death. Even after the cleansing mint toothpaste his mouth feels dirty, contaminated by the Chitauri parasite. When he closes his mouth, the faint taste of acidic soil lingers.

Tony doesn't want to deal with the situation in his mirror, but since he's never liked Bloody Mary stories and doesn't want to become a living example of one, he goes to Thor.

He raps on Bruce's lab door and pokes his head in. "Can I borrow Thor?" He asks, tilting his head. Since Bruce and Steve are the only ones with the capability to take on Thor, he had apparently been assigned to stay with one of them at all times. At least, that was the memo on his comm.

Bruce looks up from the figurine, glasses crooked on his nose. "No problem," he says, waving a hand. "Don't be gone for long, though."

Because they have no idea what Thor is going to do anymore, now that he attacked SHIELD with his maniac of a brother. Tony jerks his head sharply outside in a gesture for Thor to accompany him.

He stands up with the rattling of chains and follows Tony outside, looking strange without his ever-present hammer on his hip. SHIELD was going to transfer it later this week to an adamantium room in the basement of HQ, once it was finished. Thor is radiating a strong aura of agitation and anger, and when he looks up his eyes are dark.

"Greetings, Tony," Thor says. Kind words said in a hard voice. Tony can tell that he's still displeased with SHIELD and with Loki. "What is the meaning of this visit?"

"Hey," Tony says guardedly, rubbing anxious hands on his jeans. He's acutely aware of the fact that he does not have his suit, but Thor most definitely still has his strength. "I was wondering—could Loki appear in a mirror? Just in the reflection, but not actually be there."

"Loki could make himself invisible yet keep his reflection visible in a mirror," Thor muses, turning his gaze to a panel on the wall. "I know he can project his image over far distances. While I have not seen him appear in a mirror specifically, I imagine that he would be able to do such a thing." Thor looks back at him. "Why?"

"Ah…" Tony shifts uncomfortably, hesitant to give him information about Loki. "He was there. In my mirror just now."

Thor looks surprised, then suspicious. "Tell me, Tony Stark. What have you done to my brother?"

"I haven't done anything," Tony says warily. "Why are you asking me? He's the one who's stalking me."

"Loki has a… fascination with you. I do not understand how, yet, but somehow you are important," Thor says, looking at him narrowly. "He does not give his attention to people lightly."

Tony is—surprised. Mostly unpleasantly surprised. So now the mad mischief god has a fixation on him. He probably doesn't occupy the healthiest living space right now.

"And what do you think he's going to do now?" Tony asks, furrowing his brows. It's just so easy to forget that Thor isn't trustworthy, but the black chains on his wrists are a constant reminder. He attacked SHIELD _with Loki._

Thor shakes his head slowly. "I am afraid I do not know. Loki has changed in many ways since he first came to your city." He tilts his head, considering. "And this 'Thanos' you say he has mentioned… I do not like the feel of this. If Loki is wary of him then we all should be."

"This just keeps getting better," Tony mutters.

"Sarcasm has no place here, Tony," Thor rumbles. "Not now, when the situation is so grave."

Tony smiles. "Can't help it," he says flippantly. "It's part of my nature."

He leaves then, giving a short excuse about work he has in the lab, and escapes from Thor's unreadable gaze. He's reminded, suddenly, of how old Thor is, thousands and thousands of years. Long enough to be part of myth. Thor can control some of the goddamned elements. Tony's just a rich, foolish man in a crushable metal suit who thinks he can play with gods.

He doesn't want to go back to the lab. Loki's presence in the mirror is heavy in his mind, and the fact that he can appear in HQ without any warning…

But he's a grown man, and he can't afford to shy away from a reflection. So Tony puts on his big boy pants, smooths out the beginning cracks in his composure, and heads back down.

_"Are you alright, sir?"_ Jarvis says when he walks in. _"You left in quite a hurry."_

"You didn't see that in the mirror, did you," Tony says, sighing. He has a strong suspicion that Loki's magical aura thing kind of screws up technology.

_"I'm afraid not, sir. What exactly did I miss?"_

"Let's go find out," Tony says grimly, and strides over to the bathroom.

An empty mirror sits tauntingly on the wall. Tony is strangely disappointed. He turns to walk back—

A dark blur appears in the mirror, trailing green sparks. Tony looks closer, and fuck, that's _Loki._ Loki is running, turning every once and a while to blast green fire behind him, and this whole depth thing in the mirror is screwing with Tony's head.

Loki, or maybe just Loki's reflection, is getting closer and closer, until suddenly he leaps _through_ the mirror, collapsing past Tony and stumbling as he hits the floor. Tony turns to look behind him in astonishment, but a loud crack like a gunshot emanates from the mirror and he whips his head back around.

The mirror is slowly darkening, black smoke crawling across the glass, and Tony is suddenly struck by familiarity. Déjà vu or something, because he _knows_ he's seen those whirling black clouds before. Whirling black clouds sheathed in a glassy finish.

Tony pushes the thoughts out of his mind, because he can't think about that right now, not when the mirror is going berserk in front of him. The smoke starts swirling even more violently, giving off a dark and angry aura as the lights flicker ominously.

There's another crack, similar a gunshot or a snapping bone, and a small spray of white appears in the center of the mirror like a bullet hole. Tony backs away a few steps, standing next to where Loki is struggling to his feet near the door.

The snapping sounds continue and the white spray starts expanding, sharp fissures slowly spreading over the mirror like a spider web. Tony can see his horrified face reflected brokenly across the jagged pieces. Loki is a dark, shattered shape slightly behind him.

The smoke trapped in the mirror starts leaking out of the cracks, spilling like oil onto the bathroom countertop. Tony can only describe it as _snakelike_—as if the smoke has a consciousness. The slithering, coiling clouds seem to be hunting something as it takes over the counter in a roiling blanket. A bone-deep fear is keeping his feet glued to the ground and he only watches in numbed horror as the smoke drips down the side of the counter and reaches for his ratty shoes. The closer it gets, the more nauseous he feels, chilled and sweating.

Suddenly, the smoke stops, rearing back as if it's hitting an invisible barrier. A hissing, snarling sound comes from the center of the cloud, but it doesn't come any farther. Instead, it reaches up like tentacles until it's created an entire floor-to-ceiling wall. Tony stares, dazed with shock, as Loki stands up and starts staggering forward.

The wall of smoke concaves as Loki limps closer and closer, as if he has an invisible shield around him that forces it away. Sluggishly, the black swirling mass starts to retreat unwillingly, hissing as it goes.

Loki forces the smoke away, back towards the mirror. It starts curling in on itself, writhing and twisting like grasping claws. Slowly it starts forcing itself back through the cracks in the mirror. It looks disgusting, as though someone played a clip of vomiting backwards. The smoke starts congealing into an almost sludgy substance as it clumps back into the cracks.

The substance hisses one last time and disappears back into the fissures in the mirror. With another crack, the mirror shatters into jagged pieces on the countertop, leaving a blank, empty wall behind it. Tony stares at it uncomprehendingly. His feet won't move from where they're rooted in the concrete.

Loki collapses once again after the mirror shatters, his leg buckling and sweat beading on his pale forehead. Tony unfreezes enough to stoop down, grasping Loki's wrist to feel his pulse.

Loki makes an annoyed sound and feebly tries to pull his hand away, but Tony ignores him and presses his fingers down hard. Loki's pulse is too fast, almost feverish, and when Tony looks back at his face he can see his eyes are bloodshot and dazed.

Thundering footsteps sound behind him and in a few seconds Thor bursts into the room, fists raised in the absence of Mjolnir.

"What is the nature of this?" He roars.

Tony stands up, shaky on his feet. What the hell was that? He holds his hands out in a placating gesture. "Hold on, Thor," Tony yells cautiously, hoping that he won't be bowled over.

"I sensed dark magic here," Thor growls. His nostrils flare and his face is tense and angry. "And I would like to know," Thor spits, advancing. "Why you are here." He directs his last question at Loki.

Loki sits up, struggling. "I don't have…" He wheezes, clenching the counter in a white-knuckled grip. "To explain… myself to you."

Thor looks ready to kill someone. Ah, crap.

"Look, Thor," Tony intervenes hastily. "Loki didn't create the… dark magic, or whatever you call it. He came through the mirror and something came in after him. He forced it back in and the mirror shattered." He doesn't know why he's defending Loki, their enemy who has screwed things up for them at every turn. He's probably going insane.

It doesn't look like Loki knows what to make of it either. He looks faintly surprised before he hardens his gaze once again and glares defiantly at Thor.

Thor, for his part, still looks suspicious. He closes the distance between him and Tony in one long stride and grips Tony's jaw in a calloused hand. He stares searchingly into Tony's eyes for a second, and gives a short nod before stepping away, apparently satisfied.

Thor then heads over to the bathroom counter, intending to pick up one of the pieces of the mirror. The second Thor's outstretched hand gets close to the nearest shard, he recoils, pulling his hand back as if burned.

"What is it?" Tony asks warily.

"These pieces reek of darkness," Thor says grimly. "Do not touch them," he says sharply as Tony reaches out for the shards, grabbing Tony's wrist roughly and yanking him back. "They carry an ancient poison. Loki would have done well to warn you of this." Thor glowers at Loki's still hunched-over form where he's still gripping the counter.

Loki sneers. "Excuse me if I didn't have enough time or energy to cast a purifying spell when I was _forcing it back_ into the portal from whence it came," he snaps.

The tension in the air is so thick Tony could cut it with a knife. No, scratch that. It's so thick he'd need a goddamned _saw_ to get through it.

The uncomfortable moment is shattered when Steve, Natasha, Bruce, and Clint burst in with widened eyes.

"Hey," Tony says, dashing out of the bathroom to intercept their path. "Look, guys—"

"Tony," Steve says dismally and his eyes are so _wet—_

"Culver University and Budapest were both just bombed."


	9. Chapter 9

Tony goes out and gets drunk.

He knows it's a stupid idea. And he doesn't really give a shit.

The universe obviously hates him. After the breaking the news of the bombings, he then had to explain the whole Loki situation, which was a disaster. Clint and Bruce had nearly murdered Loki before Tony got a chance to get a word in edgewise, and even then Bruce was appearing dangerously green. Natasha looked wanted to strangle Tony. Steve looked haggard and weary and even now the mood at the house is just shy of genocide.

Everyone is cracking, slowly, and Tony doesn't want to know who'll be the first to snap. Whoever the bomber is wants to torture them psychologically, not physically. Though with what he found out about the Tesseract and its capabilities, it could only be a matter of time.

There were too many deaths today.

Betty Ross was among them. Bruce had nearly destroyed all of HQ before Thor was able to subdue him, and by that point the anger had turned to overwhelming grief. Bruce had gone into his room and they hadn't seen him since. Tony didn't know if he was still even in the building.

Natasha and Clint had both lost a man whose name they wouldn't mention when the safe house in Budapest was blown up. He doesn't know the story behind that, but it had turned both of their faces to stone when they got the call, and he hasn't seen either of them since they vanished into the gym. Their team is splitting, driven apart by rage and grief, and the mood inside HQ feels like a battleground.

Tony feels as though he's held together with fragile, breakable ties and the smallest thread of sanity.

And, of course, what does Tony Stark do when he's feeling especially breakable?

That's right.

Something stupid.

That's why Tony's in the back room of some shitty bar, drunk out of his mind and pinned against the wall while some hot blonde grinds against him. He knows it's a bad idea, but she's there and she's warm and it feels _good_ so Tony doesn't stop.

It's not until she's unbuttoning his pants and pulling down the zipper when he realizes something's wrong. She looks up at him, a feral smile on her lips and a promise in her green eyes, and he thinks,_ this_ _isn't right_.

"What's the matter, sugar?" She asks, sultrily looking up at him from under her lashes. Her long blond hair is spilling over her shoulders, contrasting sharply with the emerald sheath dress she has clinging to her curves. A gold chain that disappears into her cleavage gleams in the dim light.

There's something dribbling out of the side of her red-lipped grin.

It's purple.

Tony stumbles back as he remembers with horrifying clarity what this is. The numb bliss of alcohol he felt before is replaced with unwelcome sobriety, and the woman starts convulsing in front of him, purple liquid coating her lips and dripping down her chin. Her eyes roll back, slivers of white in her face, and she chokes and gasps. Tony is shaking as he tries inadequately to help, and _god, he isn't certified for this_.

There's blood now mixed with the purple liquid, and no, this isn't right, this isn't how it's supposed to happen. She wasn't supposed to have ties to the shit he was trying to escape.

She gives a shuddering gasp, her mouth stained with purple and red, and goes limp.

"No, no, no, no," Tony mutters, frantically trying to find a pulse under her jawline. "No, come on, this isn't happening—"

He can't find a pulse.

Tony could perform CPR when he was eight and he can do it now. He places shaky hands over her chest and starts doing compressions, all the way up to 30. He tilts her head back, opening her mouth, and pinches her nose to exhale two long breaths that make her chest rise and fall artificially. He tastes blood and acidic soil on his tongue and fights the urge to vomit.

More compressions and more breaths. He repeats the cycle four more times and checks for a pulse.

Nothing.

Tony tries again, and again, and each time it fails. Finally he stops, his breath rattling in his chest like a taunt to the still woman in front of him. She was coughing up purple liquid and now she's dead. He needs to do something.

He calls Steve. The only rock left in their shattering team.

"Tony? What's going on?"

"Steve," Tony whispers. This is so fucked up. He's sitting with a dead woman in the back of a shitty bar with people dancing to trashy pop not even six feet away from him, oblivious.

"Hey—Tony? Are you okay?"

"Steve," Tony repeats. He's gone into another numb stage of shock. It feels as though he's watching himself from the outside. He hears himself tell the location of the bar he's in, that there's a dead woman and that Steve can't alert the authorities. Not yet.

Tony comes back to himself when Steve, Thor, and Loki burst into the room. There's a sinking feeling in his gut when he looks for Bruce or Clint or Natasha and sees empty space.

"Are you—" Steve cuts himself off, instead just casting a worrying glance in his direction. Good man. Tony doesn't want to talk about himself at all right now. Steve stands reassuringly by Tony's shoulder instead and stares down at the body.

Thor hangs towards the back of the room, seeming to not want to leave Loki's side. Loki, for his part, hasn't even looked in their direction and is idly examining his polished, black fingernails. Even though Loki is the picture of haughtiness, there's still a grey cast to his features.

"Tony, what happened?" Steve asks, hushed. As if in _respect_. Tony is suddenly, irrationally angry. He didn't know the woman, barely talked to her, but life isn't fair and he's so tired of all of this shit happening. There isn't a shred of respect in this room, not from the blood staining the woman's teeth, not in her gold-polished fingernails brushing the floor, and certainly not in him.

"She was—" Tony cuts himself off, nearly choking on the words. "Something started coming out of her mouth. I—it's like when I puked up the parasite. She collapsed and I performed CPR but nothing happened. She's dead." Tony delivers it in a purposely-detached manner and Steve gives him an unreadable look. Compartmentalizing.

Loki, who's head snaps up when he hears the word "parasite," pushes Tony out of the way as he goes by and Tony stumbles. There's a curse on his lips but he holds his tongue, because Loki's already pale complexion has whitened even further as he examines the body.

"What—" Thor starts to ask as he comes closer, before cutting himself with a small noise of recognition.

Loki looks up, and there's something slightly frenzied in his eyes. "I know this woman," he says.

"Aye," Thor says, subdued.

Steve gives Loki a questioning glance. "And?"

"Her name is Amora," Loki breathes, staring down at her heart-shaped face like he wants to dissect it. "Amora the Enchantress."

"How do you know her?" Steve asks dubiously.

Loki tilts his head, a wry smirk curling up the corners of his mouth. Tony can't look away. "She had a… fixation with Thor. More like an obsession, truly."

A fixation. Like Thor said Loki had with Tony. Does Loki really have a fascination with him? Somehow, Tony can't imagine him having an obsession with anything he didn't want to use.

"And—" Loki continues, "She was an enchantress. One of the more powerful and, in actuality, more bothersome ones. We were… rivals, I suppose you could say."

"I do not understand why she would appear here," Thor says somberly. "She loathed Midgard and its inhabitants."

Loki looks haughty and aloof, but the woman's—Amora's, Tony corrects—body seems to bother him. He swipes two fingers into the liquids staining the area around her mouth and holds them up, the red-purple mixture looking black against his fingers.

"Your answer," Loki says, staring down at the body with a brooding look on his face, "is another Chitauri paras—"

Loki cuts himself off. "There's something here," he hisses, searching in what looks like empty air next to Amora's hips. Loki plunges his hand down, like he's going to punch the ground, but instead it disappears into empty air.

"A dimensional pocket," Thor explains in a low voice to Steve and Tony's disbelieving looks. In the wake of the woman's corpse on the floor it's easy to forget that they were fighting against Thor only recently. "It allows her to hide things from visual eyes and, indeed, out of this dimension, yet keep it close enough to reach."

"Hush," Loki growls, looking as though he's attempting to grasp something. His arm just… disappears at the elbow. Tony blinks his eyes rapidly to make sure he's not seeing things.

They all fall silent, the booming of the bass throbbing in the background like a heartbeat.

Loki gives a grunt of pain, his face pulling into a grimace. He withdraws his hand, which is smoking and blistered and strangely… blue? Tony squints to get a better look in the dim light, but the burn marks fade in an instant back to smooth white skin.

Loki, for his part, lets out a long and probably obscene string in what Tony presumes is the Asgardian language.

"I felt it," Loki says irritably. He looks put off and almost… hungry. "The Tesseract. It was there."

"What?" Steve says disbelievingly. "Where is it?"

Loki turns a disdainful gaze on him. "I do not know, _Captain_," he says sarcastically. "It was whisked out of my grasp the second I touched it."

"Is that even possible?" Tony wonders aloud.

Loki scowls. "I would not normally assume so, considering the point of a 'dimensional pocket' as Thor so elegantly put it, is to keep it out of prying eyes. Yet, after today's events, it is evidently so."

Tony is… doubtful, to say the least. "So you're saying that this woman—Amora—had the Tesseract with her this whole time?"

Loki raises an eyebrow. "Perhaps she is your bomber."

Back up. Wait a second.

This random Asgardian woman, Amora the Sorceress or whatever, is the bomber? What about Thanos?

"But—" Tony frowns. Something is off, not quite in place.

Steve, unnoticed by Tony, has crouched down next to the body and Loki. From this angle Tony can see the gun that Steve must have tucked hurriedly into the back of his pants. Steve motions to her face, a furrow between his brows.

"But, Tony—look at this, around her mouth. You said it was like the Chitauri parasite, but this looks like blood to me."

"I coughed up blood too," Tony says. He still doesn't want to dwell on the Chitauri parasite that was inside his head. SHIELD is probably analyzing it in a lab somewhere; he should get it back. "Just, not that much. And she didn't actually cough out a parasite."

Loki looks thoughtful and holds two hands facing palm-down above Amora's prone figure. "No, she did not expel it from her system," he murmurs. "It is still trapped. Dead, now," he adds.

"I don't get how the parasite even fucking works. It shouldn't be _possible_," Tony says furiously. He hates it, hates the vileness of it and the way it got inside his head and left him so vulnerable without him even knowing of its presence.

"The parasite inserts itself next to the spine," Loki says in surprisingly helpful explanation, indicating along the back of Amora's corpse. "It reaches up to the base of the brain. There is where the creature's 'head' lies. The antennae are long enough and thin enough to interact with parts of the brain. I have not seen many in my travels, yet…" Loki moves next to Steve, grabbing Amora's face and turning it from side to side to inspect her jaw. He frowns, and pries open her mouth to stare down the dark tunnel of her throat. "To my knowledge, the parasite expels itself as a form of self-defense, though there could be other triggers. It escapes from its position next to the spine by puncturing a hole in one of the lungs and traveling up the trachea.

"Evidently," Loki says, now inspecting the cold column of Amora's neck, "This method can be hazardous to the parasite as well. This particular specimen didn't make it out in time."

"The problem," Steve says, standing up and creating more space between him and Loki, "Is that with the parasite, she may not be accountable for her actions. It can cause loss of control, right? We don't even know if she is the bomber, but if she was, then we have a dead body that can't tell us whether she committed the crime knowingly."

"She possessed the Tesseract," Thor growls. "That is enough to implicate her. She kept a weapon from Asgard."

Tony tilts his head. "There's nothing we can do here," he points out harshly. "Unless one of you people have something up your sleeve, the body is of no use to us. She can't help us find anything."

Loki turns his head to stare narrowly at Tony. "I agree," he says. "We should go."

Tony is surprised, and, looking at Steve's and Thor's faces, he's not the only one. Loki stands up, and Tony sees him do… _something_ with his hands, but when he blinks Loki's hands are empty by his sides.

Tony blinks again, hard, and tells himself to stop seeing things that aren't there. Pushing it out of his mind, he wrinkles his nose and says, "Call SHIELD?" In a disgusted sort of voice to Steve.

Steve nods, resigned, but it's a dead body, after all. They aren't really cleared to perform autopsies and the like.

While Steve dials in the call to SHIELD, Tony watches Thor and Loki. Thor has shifted closer to the dark-haired god, and whether it's to protect him or stop him is anyone's guess. Loki, on the other hand, is watching the proceedings with a pleased look on his face. Tony makes a mental note to keep an eye on him. He doesn't trust Loki at all.

Tony hears Steve in the background, giving Fury the short and succinct version of events—an Asgardian woman died and she may have had the same parasite Tony did. He notices with grim amusement that Steve doesn't mention the Tesseract at all.

They realize in dismay right as the SHIELD agents are pulling up that SHIELD doesn't know that Loki came to HQ, and as far Fury knows, Loki is roaming the cosmos causing mayhem elsewhere.

Steve hisses at Loki and Thor to leave out back and meet them somewhere while Steve and Tony get the car. In answer to that, Loki just raises his eyebrows. He wiggles his fingers and mouths, "toodles" to all of them and proceeds to simply… fade away.

Which is great and all for getting back to the car unnoticed, but once they actually reach the SHIELD branded vehicle, they realize they have no idea where Loki actually is. For all they know, he's roaming the streets of New York now that he gave them the slip.

Tony is going to _murder_ Loki.

"Well, this sucks," he says. Steve and Thor are standing at the curb looking lost. Yeah. This is not one of Tony's better days.

The window of the SHIELD car rolls down, startling him. What looks like a suddenly visible icy green substance burns away to reveal Loki, his arms crossed lazily over the window.

"I thought you three were in a bit of a hurry?" he drawls, a smug look on his face.

Steve and Thor just give him stony looks and move to get in the car in silence. Tony stares, trying to solve the enigma that is Loki. He's confused. He wants to know why Loki keeps coming back.

Loki locks eyes with him and something twists his mouth strangely. He sits back inside the car, rolling the window back up, and Tony opens the passenger door in front of him and slides inside. This will be interesting.


	10. Chapter 10

The atmosphere inside the car is brittle with tension. Steve and Tony don't want to talk with Loki sitting in the car behind them, and _something_ happened between Thor and Loki when he received the Allfather's sentence.

So the resulting ride is one Tony would like to repeat… _never_, thanks. Steve keeps shooting warning—or maybe concerned—glances at him during the whole ride and he can feel Loki's eyes boring into the back of his neck.

When the four of them get back to HQ they all practically leap out of the car, except for Loki, who gets out leisurely as if he has all the time in the world. Of course.

As they're walking out of the garage, into the main part of headquarters, Jarvis beeps out the code to inform Tony he has a message waiting. Tony nods shortly and glances at Loki out of the corner of his eye. Wouldn't do to have one of their biggest enemies learning something he shouldn't.

Judging by Loki's narrowing eyes, he knows something's up. Tony doesn't really care, though, because once they reach the main floor Thor steers Loki away from Steve and Tony to go to… who knows where. It's Thor's problem now, though, and Tony made sure to lock down anything important when Loki first came through the mirror. He doubts that it'll stop Loki if he really wants to get into something, but he hasn't had enough time to get into "magic-proofing" yet.

Tony tilts his head to motion Steve away from where Thor and Loki are walking away down the hall.

"Come on," he says in a low voice. "Don't want any eavesdropping."

They end up going back down to the shooting range, because it's soundproofed. Tony doesn't know how good Loki and Thor's ears are and he doesn't want to take any risks. Better safe than sorry is not Tony's usual motto, but so much weird things have been going on lately.

"Okay, Jarvis, what's the message?"

"_I regret to inform you that Dr. Banner, Agent Romanoff, and Agent Barton are no longer within the premises._"

Steve's face tightens minutely and Tony closes his eyes in frustration and disappointment.

"Did you try reaching them?" Tony asks as normally as he can manage. He blinks his eyes back open and stares at the battered targets.

"_I did. They seem to have turned off their communicators_."

Shit. If they turned off their communicators that means it's pretty bad. It also means that Jarvis can't track them, because if they've turned off their communicators that means they've dumped their phones, too. Bruce, Clint, and Natasha are smart, too smart to slip up like that.

"Okay," Steve says, resignation in his eyes. "Okay," he repeats. "We'll just have… to wait, then." He turns towards the shooting range door. "I'm going to go check on Thor and Loki," he says over his shoulder as he leaves, before the door closes softly behind him.

Tony is left standing in the middle of the shooting range, the smell of gunpowder still lingering in the air and the bitter taste of betrayal in his throat.

It's not until he's back in the workshop staring blankly at a glass of scotch that he realizes he's _angry_.

Maybe that's too harsh of him, maybe he's being too cruel, but Tony never played fair anyways. He's angry that Bruce and Clint and Natasha have all left without explanation after the bombings. Tony knows how much damage has been caused, feels the heavy weight of not _doing_ anything on his shoulders, but he didn't up and leave when Stark Tower was destroyed. Steve didn't leave when the Project Rebirth block was blown up.

Tony knows that Bruce is devastated at Betty Ross' death. He knows that Clint and Natasha were close with the man in Budapest in a way that's not common with them. Tony doesn't _blame_ them, because he understands, and he probably would have done the same if it had happened to Pepper.

He's just angry that they left without a note, without a call, that they left Steve and him floundering in a shattered team. It's just the two of them holding down the fort that may blow up from the inside, what with Loki and Thor being here and all.

Maybe Tony has abandonment issues.

Fuck.

He may put on the patented Tony-Stark-Smile and act like he's on top of the world, but in reality he has no fucking idea what he's doing. He's flying blind 24/7. Tony knocks down the glass of scotch with a sigh, the liquid burning his throat, and resolves to figure out at least one of his many problems.

He ends up asking Jarvis where Loki is, because he doesn't really know where exactly Thor led him once they got back from the whole mess with Amora. It turns out he's in one of the rooms across from Thor's, which doesn't surprise Tony—Thor likes to keep his brother close. What does surprise him, though, is that Loki is alone.

When he walks in, Loki is sitting cross-legged on the high bed, which puts him almost at eye-level with Tony. A pair of handcuffs that are obviously Asgardian in make are clamped tight on Loki's wrists, which are held loosely in front of him. Runes and strange characters twine in lines over the thick golden braces. Hmm. So Thor doesn't trust Loki that much.

Tony finds himself wondering again what happened in Asgard between the two brothers.

"Anthony," Loki says. "What is the purpose of this visit?" Loki sounds… exhausted. He holds himself gingerly, and Tony is struck by the memory of Loki's collapsed form on the bathroom floor. He's paler than usual and his emerald eyes seem to be leeched of color to resemble near-transparent glass.

Tony doesn't trust Loki. He's not going to blindly believe that Loki is as hurt as he looks.

"I want to know why you're still here."

Loki raises an eyebrow. "That's your question," he says disbelievingly. "Not anything about Amora the Enchantress, the 'bomber,' nor Thanos, nor anything about the Chitauri parasite. I cannot decide if you are strange or foolish."

Tony crosses his arms. "Are you offering information on any of those?"

Loki tilts his head. "Perhaps," he smirks humorlessly. "Perhaps I am. Yet why would you trust my information?"

"Why would I, indeed," Tony mutters darkly.

"I'll tell you why," Loki snarls, his previous good cheer disappearing in a flash. He stands up, towering over Tony. Are all Asgardians tall or is it just Thor and Loki?

"You will listen to, if not trust, the words I speak, because you have no other choice. As loathe as you are to admit it, I am the only one who has given you a glimpse into this mad dance that you have no part of!"

Tony realizes dully that Loki's telling the truth. Information about the Chitauri parasite, Thanos, Amora—okay, maybe Thor could have figured that out on his own, but the point is, Loki's been giving them info on this whole mess.

One of Loki's titles is the Liesmith. Tony has to remember that.

In a flash, Loki is standing in front of him and gripping Tony's face in his shackled hands. The thick metal band that connects the two cuffs cuts into the skin under his jaw and he swallows gingerly.

"But," Loki whispers, and his eyes are so green next to the dark hollows of his eye sockets. "You owe me a life debt. Do not forget it."

Loki releases his hands from Tony's temples and steps back. "Ask away," he says, dipping his head sarcastically.

Tony releases a breath he didn't know he was holding and reminds himself that he came here with a purpose. "Tell me why you're still here."

Loki purses his lips in amusement. "Perhaps I like it here."

"Perhaps you don't," Tony says with a hardened gaze. "Perhaps you're playing all of us."

"Perhaps I am," Loki says, and laughs. "You are indeed catching on quick, Anthony."

"Tell me why you are still here," Tony repeats. "Are you still recovering from injuries? Are you planning to destroy my team? Or are you just here," Tony hisses, "To be a_ nuisance_?"

Loki bristles slightly at the mention of injuries. So that's part of the reason, at least. His face smooths over quickly, though, and he looks as unreadable as always. "If I was planning to destroy your team, I wouldn't tell you, would I?"

"That doesn't rule out the 'nuisance' part."

"How about this," Loki says, a jagged smirk stealing over his face. "I will tell you why I am here if you," he gestures towards Tony's chest. "Tell me about _that_."

Tony looks down to see the dim, ever-present light of the arc reactor shining through his shirt. He looks up at Loki, and his gaze is as cold as ice.

"Sorry, Lokes. Not a chance in hell."

"Hell can be very persuasive," Loki purrs. "But I digress. I am afraid," and he doesn't sound afraid at all, "That is the only information I will exchange for. My apologies." Loki gives a sly smile and turns his back. "Inform me if you choose to reconsider my offer."

Tony stares at him for a moment and leaves in silence. He won't trade information about the arc reactor for anything. Nick Fury should know that; he's asked multiple times. If Loki won't tell him outright why he's sticking around, he'll have to find him another way.

He ends up going down to the workshop again and trying to find anything he can on Amora the Enchantress. AC/DC pours from the speakers and he hums along softly as he researches. There isn't anything in SHIELD databases, though, and nothing in the Norse myths either. Amora is a dead end.

Tony remembers the Tesseract—how could he forget, it's been lurking in the back of his mind since they found Amora—and calls Erik Selvig. He gets no response and leaves a message before calling Jane.

She tells him that after New York, Selvig vanished. He'd been giving them calls occasionally, but that he's been "on to something" and most likely in the Canada-Alaska region. Tony feels like an ass for not asking about him earlier. Never the less, Selvig is unreachable and Tony still has nothing useful. He sees the list of Avenger-significant locations that Jarvis pulled up a while ago and thinks bitterly that it's too little, too late.

By the time that morning comes, he's exhausted and still drawing a blank.

His useless messing around gets interrupted by Jarvis and a security feed.

_"Sir, Dr. Banner has just arrived."_


	11. Chapter 11

Pure relief envelopes him before he realizes that even though Bruce is back, that doesn't mean the team is fixed. Tony knows that Bruce is angry and bitter and sad, and that Betty Ross was an idea Bruce clung to for years after they parted.

He rushes up anyways, because he won't abandon Bruce, not now.

Steve is already up there, twisting his hands like he doesn't know what to do with them. Bruce stands awkwardly in the wide, sky lit entrance hall with a large, grey duffel slung over his shoulder.

"Hey-o, Brucey," Tony says, maybe a bit more guardedly than usual.

"Hey," Bruce replies. His voice cracks a little and he coughs. "Hey," he tries again.

"Bruce," Steve says, looking lost. "Where were you?"

Bruce shifts uncomfortably on his feet. Tony waits. "I went back to Culver," he says finally. Something in his gaze resolves and he speaks the next words in a firm voice, looking first at Steve and then Tony straight in the eye. "Don't look at me like that. You know I had to. You would have done the same."

"I would have left a note," Tony points out. "Or called. Not left Jarvis to explain that you suddenly vanished."

Bruce winces. "I'll admit that wasn't one of my finer moments," he says, regret bleeding into the corners of his voice. "But look," he says hurriedly, pulling the bag off over his shoulder and kneeling down next to it on the floor, "While I was there I found something. It's, well, mildly disturbing, yeah, but..."

Bruce unzips the duffel with haste, fingers fumbling slightly. He digs around inside the bag before pulling out an old shirt that's been bundled up into a ball.

"You said you found a Captain America figurine, the same prototype toy you gave Steve," Bruce says, looking up at Tony. God, he knows what's coming next and feels sick.

Bruce unwraps the faded maroon shirt and holds up the prototype Hulk doll with the screwed up face. Tony remembers the message he wrote and if he squints he can see his messy writing on one miniature bicep—

Except there is no screwed up face, because the head's been blown clean off.

"Looks like Amora was very symbolic," Steve says with a pinched look on his face.

"Amora?" Bruce and Tony ask at the same time.

Steve looks surprised. "Yeah, Amora," he says. "I thought we decided—"

"No, _Loki_ decided that she was the bomber," Tony snaps, Loki's snide remarks from a few moments ago stinging slightly in his memory. "Just because she had the Tesseract doesn't mean that she actually attacked all of the locations. Remember the parasite?"

Bruce looks increasingly confused. "I have a feeling I'm missing something here," he says bemusedly. "Who's Amora?"

Steve turns back to him, slightly startled.

"Right," he says. "Sorry." Steve proceeds to fill Bruce in on the whole clusterfuck with Amora and the parasite while Tony waits impatiently, his thoughts wandering to the shackled god in his house. Tony can't be relying on Loki to give him information, not when he can't trust him.

Bruce's expression darkens as Steve explains further. When Steve finally reaches the end of his summary, Bruce runs a hand over his tired face, pushing up his glasses to scrub at his eyes. "So you're saying that this woman had the Tesseract and that she's probably the bomber, but that she had the parasite so she may not actually be our culprit?" He asks incredulously.

Loki chooses that moment to stride in regally, his long leather duster billowing around his feet and a knowing expression in his eyes. "Oh, no, Dr. Banner. I can tell you for certain that she is indeed your bomber," he says.

Bruce's face tightens. "Loki," he says guardedly.

Loki grins, a smile that's all teeth and no joy. "Yes. Me," he says, and bows as grandly as he can with his hands shackled in front of him. He lifts his head and smirks. "At your service."

A muscle twitches in Bruce's jaw and his eyes look faintly green, but he looks away without comment.

"So!" Loki says, mock cheerfully, snapping his fingers. "Let us get—what is that saying?–down to business. Amora the Enchantress is, despite your skepticism, your bomber."

"How do you know?" Steve asks skeptically.

Loki opens his fist, and lying on his palm is a coiled gold chain with a vial of green, swirling liquid hanging as a charm from it. Tony closes his eyes, marveling at his own stupidity, because he _recognizes_ that necklace. Saw it hanging from Amora's throat that night—_was it only a few hours ago?_—and remembers Loki investigating her neck, her jaw, her mouth. And he saw him _do something with his hands_ when he stood up…

"You did not find anything on your metal suit's figurine," he says, looking at Tony. "I am fairly certain that you will find nothing on the one of the green monster, either. However…" Loki pauses, smirking, and Tony can tell that he's so very, very smug about making them wait for answers. "If you did, it would lead you to this possession of hers."

"And what, it led you?" Steve says, folding his arms.

"Oh yes," Loki says, not hiding his sharp smile. "The Captain's toy that you found turned out to be quite useful," he says, looking at Tony.

"How the hell did you use that?" Tony asks.

Loki waves his hand in a dismissing gesture. "A simple tracking spell. It should have been child's play, yet…. something was interfering. I wonder what—or _who—_that was?" he says slyly.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Tony growls. It's disconcerting, the way Loki throws a theatrical performance for Bruce and Steve, complete with snarky humor and disarming smiles, when only a few hours before with Tony he was snarling.

Loki stares at him for a long moment before his eyes slide back to Steve and Bruce. "No, indeed," he murmurs under his breath, in a voice so low that Tony can barely hear it. Steve catches the message clearly, though, and throws a sharp glance up at Tony. Right. Super-soldier hearing.

Raising his voice, Loki adds, "I was tracking Amora's touch from the souvenirs you found. However, I believe that the Tesseract muddled my magic. I could not discern who placed the figures before seeing her body in person."

Steve still looks unimpressed. "I'm not understanding how this helps us."

"Well, you wouldn't, Captain," Loki says condescendingly. "However, I would expect better of you two," he says, motioning to Bruce and Tony, a strange bitterness creeping into his voice. "The brains of the operation… or so I am told."

Tony shakes his head slightly, a small, sardonic smile on his lips. "Sorry. You lost me."

"Why," Loki says with a quiet laugh and a razor grin, "You all have quite a mess on your hands, do you not?

"You see, Amora was the bomber, but she was not the _culprit_. Chitauri brain parasites can be forcibly implanted, as I believe was the case with you, Anthony, and Amora. So you were _both_ forced into seeing and doing something, by the same rare and deadly method. What a coincidence. Could it even be by the same person? Oh, my goodness. I _do_ hope that's not the case." Loki grins. "And while the parasites are extremely intelligent, they couldn't plan something as complex as this without a master."

Steve narrows his eyes at Loki, both in reaction of his condescending tone and the content of his words. Tony doesn't know how Steve manages to stay so calm, because he knows for a fact that his stomach is roiling.

"I didn't know Chitauri parasites could have masters," Steve says in a hard voice. He turns to Bruce. "It seems as though he's introducing new information all the time, doesn't it?"

Bruce nods, his eyes never leaving Loki. "Quite," he says calmly.

Loki's smile flickers for a split second before he regains composure of himself. "Not new," he says, steel lining underneath his words. "Consider the fact that you may just be ignorant. Even you, _Captain Rogers_, in all your years you would be a mere infant to the Aesir." He shifts, the metal of his handcuffs clinking. "As for the Chitauri, they operate on a hive mind. They are mindless thugs, hired mercenaries only following their masters' orders. The parasite is intelligent enough that, if a higher-thinking organism desired, it could establish contact through the hive mind. Rather like training an animal."

"So you're saying that the guy orchestrating the bombings is a _Chitauri?_" Tony asks dubiously.

Loki stares at him thoughtfully. "Would it be so strange if it was?"

"Yes," Tony growls. "We _blew them up._ With a _nuclear missile._ I put it in there myself."

Loki rolls his eyes. "Oh, please. Spare me from the flaw of human arrogance. What you destroyed was merely a sector, nothing more. The Chitauri are mercenaries, and they have spread gradually across the cosmos. The ones that attacked Midgard were under employment. While that sector was destroyed, many still remain."

He looks away, past Bruce's shoulder and down the hall. "Yet even so, the answer to your question is no. The culprit does not have to be a Chitauri. Anyone capable of telepathic thought should be able to make contact with a parasite if they are powerful enough.

"Now," Loki murmurs, and there's something far off and distant in his gaze, as if he's not quite there with them in the wide entrance hall. "If you must excuse me. I have some… pressing matters to attend to."

"Hey, wait—" Tony says, but Loki is gone. He didn't teleport; he was just… fast. Tony drops down his arm, which he hadn't known he'd outstretched, and turns back to Steve and Bruce.

"What kind of 'pressing matters' could he possibly have when he's handcuffed in enemy headquarters?" Steve asks.

"I don't know, but I don't like it," Tony mutters. "Jarvis, what's Loki doing right now?"

"_Mr. Laufeyson is currently on the roof, sir. He does not appear to be doing much of anything at the moment,_" Jarvis replies smoothly.

Tony tilts his head. "Huh," he says. He flicks his gaze back to Steve. "I don't trust him. At all. I'm willing to let this," he makes a wide, vague gesture with his hands, "happen for now only because he's given us so much information and Thor would probably murder me otherwise, but one finger on any of my systems and I want him locked up and sent back to SHIELD."

"Agreed," Steve says instantly, nodding. "Don't allow Ms. Potts or Dr. Foster in HQ right now, either."

"I'll message them," Tony says, already making plans of what he's going to do. "Also, guys?"

"Hmm?" Bruce says, busy with something in his duffel.

"Don't forget to check on him once in a while in person," Tony says lowly. "Scans from SHIELD, security tapes… they don't really _work_ on him. I wouldn't put it past him to disable you or something, Jarv," he says uneasily. "No offense."

_"None taken, sir_."

After his little spiel, Bruce and Steve look…well, concerned would be an understatement. They both know how much Tony takes pride in his tech and especially Jarvis. For him to admit that Loki might get the better of Jarvis is discouraging, to say the least.

"Right," Steve says. "I'll get Thor to keep an eye on him, too."

"He can't trust Loki that much if he put those manacles on him," Bruce says, re-slinging the duffel bag on his shoulder.

"They're Asgardian in make," Tony says, and smirks to cover up his anxiousness. "Maybe that's what they do with all the naughty little boys."

Tony kinda expects to get smote after that comment, but after an intake of breath from Steve and an anticipatory silence, nothing happens.

"Yeah, that may not have been the best timing," Tony says under his breath. "Come on, Bruce, dump your stuff and get down to the workshop. I have something you should look at."


End file.
